TOMORROW
by ruby gillis
Summary: Ella Lorena Kennedy is sixteen years old and an orphan, and her life is full of strange, unexplainable mysteries. But what will happen when she starts to delve into the past? NOT SCARLETT COMPLIANT.
1. Chapter 1

"Soon this will be over," said Ella Lorena Kennedy to herself, "And then I can go home."

It was a hot day for April and the cicadas buzzed over head. The heat hung in shimmering, silvery waves over the red-dirt Clayton County roads. It was the sort of day that in the old times would have been dedicated to lounging—on the wide, white board porches, in the shade of the oaks and the tall pines and the wide, spanning magnolia trees. The songs of the darkies in the fields would have been the only sound on the still air, beside that of demure girlish laughter and gentlemanly remarks.

The young folks did not remember those days, but the older ones did. Heavens, Ella thought, it was written all over their faces. How sad, to live each day in a world that was dead! But they all did. Whenever they were together, they talked about the old days. _Do you remember Tony Fontaine, and his six-shooter? And oh, the Tarleton boys! And the barbecues at Twelve Oaks? And that business with Scarlett and…oh, well never mind. _Who didn't Scarlett O'Hara have business with, once upon a time?

How hollow and empty those words that stood for oft-remembered times sounded to Ella, who had never known that life! She did not know that those words were the only way to keep the folks from feeling hollow and empty inside. The thought of before was all that made life now—life after—worth living at all.

Ella had only a vague notion of what Reconstruction was. It seemed such a grand term to use to describe the way her young life had always been. There was nothing in her purview to be reconstructed. Things weren't broken—they were simply the way they had always been.

She had never known the slow, honeyed days of before—before the War. The folks who had known it knew that that world never _could_ be reconstructed. The jagged pieces would never fit back together quite in the way they had. The shards and remnants might be put together in a new and useful way—but never again could they be made into the same vessel, which had held gentleness and sweetness like a great, golden bowl.

But still they could not forget. It would take passing out of this world to forget the world that once had been.

"Ashes to ashes," said the preacher, "And dust to dust."

Ella felt sorry that she had let her thoughts wander. Uncle Will Benteen had been a good man. Not a gentleman, like Uncle Ashley, or even interesting, like Uncle Rhett (whom Ella had long suspected wasn't a gentleman at all, despite his charming ways and graceful manner), but he had been _good_. And he had been one of the only things that made living at Tara tolerable. She had a fleeting thought of what on earth would she do without him? He had been nice to her. And he had never acted as though she were a burden, like Aunt Suellen did. _Ella Lorena needs a new dress. Ella Lorena, do you really need a second biscuit? I swear that child is eating us out of house and home. _When Sally and Little Will had both had three!

Ella looked down at her cheap black mourning dress—calico, with lank sleeves and fusty hem. She should have had a nicer dress—Sally and Suellen were in bombazine, which was too heavy for this hot weather. It was better than calico, though. But after all, as Aunt Suellen had said, it wasn't _Ella's_ father who had died. No, Ella's father had died when she was a baby. She didn't even have one memory of him. Surely that made her more of a tragic figure than Sal and Will, who had had their father for their whole lives.

No one cared how Ella looked at a time like this. Aunt Suellen said that, too. And besides, they couldn't afford to dress her as though she were 'regular' family. Or so Aunt Suellen also said.

At least, Ella thought, she looked better in black than Sally did. Sally was as yellow as the slow-moving river that wound about the edge of the property, and her pale, watery red hair just hung there, lank, without the slightest bit of curl.

Ella had been an ugly baby and an unremarkable child—she had surprised everyone by turning pretty, even herself. It was still something of a pleasurable surprise to look at her reflection in the mirror. She did not know it but she greatly resembled her Grandmother Robillard—and her name sake—except for the color of her eyes.

Ella's hair was red, too, but it was ripely, ruddily red, and when she unpinned it, it tumbled down her back in waves. It had the ground color of chestnut behind it. And she wasn't freckled all over like Sally. Ella's skin was magnolia-blossom white and she was proud of her complexion, with a certain innate pride that she did not understand. She did not know why she should be so proud of her lily-white brow and her smooth hands, but she was.

"Fussing around with your mittens and bonnets," sneered Sally, who browned immediately whenever she went out, no matter how many mittens and bonnets she wore. "Do you think you're a belle, Ella Lorena?" Scathingly—Sally had inherited her mother's knack of speaking caustically and unpleasantly.

"My mother was a belle," Ella said, drawing herself to her full height.

"Your mother was!" cried Sally hotly, and would have said something more besides, if Uncle Will hadn't come into the room just then and dragged the girls away from each other.

"Ella's all right, Sal," he told her, hugging her near. "Her mother was a good woman. We wouldn't none of us have a roof over our head if it weren't for Scarlett. She was a good woman, Ella Lorena—good and strong."

Dear Uncle Will—poor Uncle Will! Ella wondered what it was like to be dead and buried under the ground. Would Uncle Will be homesick? Was he in heaven, with the angels? Or was he—was he just dead? The thought that he might be just dead, never knowing anything else, for the rest of time, filled her with a sudden horror.

Oh, she wouldn't think about it now! She would think of it later—when she was at Tara. She could stand it then.

Aunt Suellen was looking at her reproachfully, her eyes beady above her hawklike nose. Ella bowed her head, moved the rosary beads through her fingers. It was a Baptist funeral—of course—Uncle Will had been a Baptist and Aunt Suellen, too—even though deep down Ella didn't believe Auntee Sue was really _anything_. But Ella had been raised a Catholic and though they went to the red-brick Baptist church every Sunday, she still clung to the old traditions that she remembered from her childhood. She felt that her mother would have wanted it that way.

This rosary had belonged to her mother. It was so pretty, made of Connemara marble that caught the light and held it. Once Ella had placed it reverently over her head and around her neck, thinking it was a piece of jewelry.

"It isn't for wearing," her mother had said, taking it away.

"What is it for, then?" wondered Ella.

"It's for talking to God," her mother said, dreamily, running her hands over the beads. "And asking Him for things you want especially."

"And will he give them to you?"

"No," said her mother, dreamier still. That was how Ella _knew_ that she'd been slipping sips from the crystal decanter on the sideboard in the drawing room. She'd been a little girl—she wasn't sure exactly of the decanter's significance. But it made her mother act strange—stranger. Her mother had been strange since—ever _since_—but Ella never found out since when exactly, because people generally stopped talking about it whenever she came into the room. Ever since…_you know_, was how people finished.

"He won't ever answer," Scarlett told her daughter. "But we still go on asking."

"Why?"

"Because we're foolish," her mother answered, and Ella had watched in horror as she put up her fist and smashed it against the mirror so that it splintered into a thousand pieces. There was a brief second in which their startled faces were reflected, and then Ella's mother was making that high-pitched, keening sound. Blood was dripping down onto the carpets, and Mamie and Ruthie had come running in to attend to it—the wounds and the carpets—and Ella had been hustled out of the room.

She had gone back to Tara the next day with Wade Hampton. She had not gone back to Atlanta again. Their mother had come to visit once more—bringing presents for them and laughing, giggling and clapping her hands like a schoolgirl. She brought a saddle for Wade that was too small for him, and a dollbaby for Ella, even though she had been too old to play with dolls.

She wore a long-sleeved dress that covered her arms to the wrists, even though it wasn't the fashion and the day had been hot. It was the last time Ella ever did see her mother.

Ella's mother wasn't buried in this grave-yard at Tara. Ella wasn't sure where her grave was. She felt sure her mother would have wanted to be buried at Tara.

She still remembered the day that Uncle Rhett had come to her and told her that she'd died. He had reeked of whisky and tobacco and taken her and Wade into his arms. Wade had cried—Wade always cried. Heavens, he must be the weepiest boy this side of the Mississippi! It was a wonder the other boys in the County had never pummeled him to death for being such a cry-baby. Ella hadn't cried. But a strange light began to grow in her tip-tilted eyes, so that they suddenly looked like a cat's at the dusky time for prowling. Her eyes, which were hazel usually, were suddenly emerald green.

Uncle Rhett had seen it, and shivered away from her in something like revulsion.

"You're the witches' child," he'd told her, pushing her away, even though Wade still clung to his pant-leg. Uncle Rhett shook him off, and tossed a roll of crumpled bills at their feet. Then he'd staggered from the room.

"The devil take you both," had been his parting words.

Uncle Rhett had never been unkind to them again, after that—he was always a little contrite around Ella and her brother, as though he was a little ashamed of what he had said, and always very gentle with them, as though he must make up for his rough words. But Ella had never forgotten what he said. Why should Uncle Rhett have said that?

Oh, she wouldn't think of it now! She'd think about it tomorrow. Someone had said that to her once and Ella had never forgotten it. She repeated it over to herself in times of trial or trouble, and clung to the idea of that carefree, ephemeral tomorrow

No—Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler (Ella wondered sometimes how they'd managed to fit all those names on the tombstone, wherever it was) was not buried here. She was somewhere else. There was another stone, somewhere else, for Bonnie. Ella had seen it only once. Dear Bonnie—sweet Bonnie. Who had called her "Sissy" and reached for her with her chubby hands. Ella had loved her. She had never resented Bonnie, or hated her, even though Bonnie was better-loved. Bonnie had loved Ella, but Bonnie was dead, too.

The Tara burying ground was small, with only a few stones. There was her grandfather, Gerald O'Hara and her grandmother. Once there had been only a wooden cross to mark the grave of each but Uncle Will had bought a nice stone, fashioned out of granite, when he was able. It sat between the graves.

There was a stone sacred just to 'Mammy.' No one remembered what that mammy's Christian name had been, and so it had just the title of the role she'd played in her life. Ella thought it was sad. She had no mammy, and so she didn't know that the women who bore that title would gladly be remembered as that before all other given names.

Pork was buried by his master. On his stone it said, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' Dear Pork. Ella had loved him. He taught her to ride a pony, when no one else could be bothered to. Uncle Will might have, if he had had time. Uncle Rhett had paid for her to have riding lessons—and dancing lessons—and a year of finishing school at the Ladies' Academy—but somehow the money always seemed to disappear the moment Aunt Suellen got her hands on it. So Ella had not learned to dance, or had her year at the finishing school—and if it hadn't been for Pork she might never have learned how to ride.

Pork had given to her the one valuable thing that Ella had. It was an old gold pocketwatch, with the initials _G. O'H_. engraved on the cover. Ella had taken it curiously and wondered why it wasn't given to Wade Hampton—or to Little Will. But Pork had patted her hand.

"The gepm'um folks can makes they's own way and buy they's own watches," Pork said, in his weird mix of darkie-speech and Irish brogue, which he had cultivated over the years. "But Laws, chile, you ain't got nuthin. Miss Ella, I's worried about you. What you gonna do wit' yo' life? You ain' like yo' ma. How's you gonna make yo' way in de world?"

Ella wondered that herself, sometimes. She kissed Pork and tucked the watch away, under her mattress. If she kept it in her jewelry box, Sally would be sure to find it. And Ella had enough sense to know that Aunt Suellen would never let her keep it. It would go to Little Will. And it was the nicest thing she'd ever had. She wanted to keep it—she wanted to have one nice thing.

There were three little graves in a row over in the shady, overgrown corner of the yard. The name on the stone of each was Gerald O'Hara, Jr. Gerald O'Hara, Gerald O'Hara and Gerald O'Hara. Three little baby boys. They would have been her uncles if they'd lived. Oh, it was sad, that babies had to die. And Ella would have liked to have one person who really cared for her. She felt that if she'd had a real uncle he might have cared for her in a way that none of her uncles had ever seemed to. Uncle Will had cared for her, but if he was ever too kind to her, Aunt Suellen got mad. Uncle Ashley was kind to her, but he was sorry for her. And Uncle Rhett didn't care for Ella at all—though at times he did seem interested in her, the way a cat watches a Junebug to see what it will do before he pounces.

She was sixteen years old and there wasn't a soul who cared even a little bit about her. Her mother would have cared, Ella was sure of that. If she had been alive to care at all. She _had_ cared, in her own way—down underneath, Ella was sure she had cared. Because a mother _had _to care.

But Ella had no mother.

A wave of unbearable sadness seemed to go right through her, at the sight of those little graves, and the thought of her mother's grave, faraway but _somewhere_, and the sound of the earth falling in clods on the casket in the grave right in front of her.

"Soon this will be over," said Ella to herself, clutching her rosary so that her fingers turned white. "And then I can go back to Tara."


	2. Chapter 2

For even though her life at Tara was far from perfect, Ella loved it there. She loved the old, white-washed brick house—so long ago white-washed that the brick was showing through in places. She did not care—she loved it—every inch of it.

She loved the way it looked in the morning, when the sun was rising over the cotton-fields that were red and ploughed up. She loved when the cotton came and the fields were drifted with the white of it. She knew each tree and stick of it and all of the secret places that Sally and Little Will didn't, even though (the thought rankled in Ella's breast) it was to be theirs one day.

Why should it be theirs? Her mother had had a half-share in it. Wade Hampton was the oldest son. But then, Wade had no use for Tara. He had not treasured any of the years he'd spent in that place and he was glad when he was able to get away—first to go to school in Virginia, and then to read the law in an office in Baltimore. He didn't come back very often—well—not really at all.

Ella wondered how he could bear to be away. Oh, was there any pleasanter sight than Tara? When she came back from Mimosa or Twelve Oaks, and rounded the curve in the road, it just burst into view so that Ella steered her pony into a gallop and took the low, broken-down stone wall in a striding leap, with a joyful heart. If only the folks inside Tara were as nice as Tara itself!

But they weren't. Ella had loved Uncle Will, but she positively hated Aunt Suellen and Sally. Little Will might have been all right if it wasn't for his groping, grabbing, sweaty little hands. But Ella had shown him. The last time he had tried anything fresh she had been prepared. She had laid her riding crop down across his fingers with such a fury that it broke the skin—and she had been whipped by Aunt Suellen in turn. But it had been _worth _it, even if she couldn't sit down for days after.

The only place nicer than Tara was Twelve Oaks. Until last spring it had been a burned out old shell, with the long grasses waving about it. No one had ever wanted it. The land had been stripped and burned during the war, and it was never any good again for farming.

But Ella liked to ride over there. She couldn't say exactly why, but she felt as if her very own history were twined with the place. And one day she had been surprised to see a team of builders about the place. The lawn had been dug up, and the walls showed signs of timbering. She had watched the work, a bit astounded, and had hardly noticed when a kind looking man had come to her.

"Are you lost?" he had asked, his blue eyes serious. Ella felt sure that if she had been lost he would have helped her to find her way back again to wherever it was she was going. But…

"I'm never lost," she said tartly. She did not mean to be tart but she did not know how to talk to strangers. No one had ever taught her to simper and pose. The man's gray eyes widened at her forthrightness as she continued,

"I'm Ella Kennedy. I live over at Tara. Have you bought this place?"

But he did not answer her.

"Ella Kennedy!" he said, breaking into a smile. "Well, then, you don't remember me. I am your cousin Beau—your cousin Beauregard Wilkes. The last time I saw you was in Aunt Pitty's house on Peachtree Street. Why, it must have been nine years ago at least. I'm not surprised that I didn't remember you. Ella—Ella Lorena—what a little beauty you have become!"

All at once Ella dropped her cool demeanor and flung her arms about his neck. Beau! Oh, she did remember! Cousin Beau Wilkes, Uncle Ashley's boy! She hadn't seen him since they'd moved to New York. It had only been a year or two after Bonnie died—after Aunt Melly died.

Uncle Ashley came back occasionally to tend to his lumber business, and to visit her. But she had never seen Beau since. He had been away at school and then abroad on his Tour—but now here he was, before her, in the flesh! And after so long!

"But are you going to be a farmer?" Ella wondered in her blunt way. She had never been taught to put things more genteelly. "Uncle Ashley said something about you going into business the last time he was here."

Beau's eyes had crinkled in the same way that Ella remembered from when they had been children together.

"I did go into business," he told her. "Ella Lorena, do you know what an electrical filament is?"

"No—what is it?"

"It's a wire—used in making light-bulbs."

"Light-bulbs?"

"Yes—for electric lighting. A man named Edison is working to develop it. One day every house will have electrical lights, Ella, that will go on and off with the flick of a switch. Electric lights—not gas-lights, nor kerosene. I've invested in his work—I've used my trust to buy a plant that manufactures these filaments."

"Invested? What does that mean?"

"It means," said Beau, crinkling his eyes again, "That I shan't have to worry about business anymore, Ella."

He _was_ planning to be a farmer—or if not exactly a farmer, close to it. He wanted to restore Twelve Oaks to the way it had been before the war.

"My father is an old man," said Beau. "He enjoys New York—but he's getting old, and he wants to come home. He never says, but I can see it in his eyes. And I want him to come here—to really come home. I want to make a home for him to come back to."

With Beau around, Ella was hardly ever lonely. She rode over to Twelve Oaks every day, and a little path through the woods that had long been grown over with ivy and kudzu was made open again. Aunt Suellen could not forbid her from going—the Wilkeses were Ella's family, after all. And Beau had seemed to know without knowing that there might be trouble, and he had smoothed things over.

"It would be so nice if you could spare her for a little while each day, Mrs. Benteen. Ella has been such help in showing me around my new home."

And Aunt Suellen could not say no. And once Ella had showed Beau around the County—and helped him plan where to plant the crape myrtles and the cape jessamine bushes, and admired the new, whitewashed brick, they had fallen into such a habit of seeing each other every day that it could not easily be broken.

And Suellen Benteen was a shrewd woman, whatever else she might be. She saw the benefit of a close friendship between the two cousins. Beau had worked wonders at Twelve Oaks. It was quite the finest house in the county, now—grand, with a dignity and splendor that Suellen, who had never paid enough attention to her mother's tutelage, and for whom resources had been scarce, could never bring to Tara. Of course Ella was sixteen and girls weren't married off so young these days—but in a few years it would be more than plausible—it would be convenient. There weren't any Hamilton cousins for Beau to marry. And Suellen knew that it would elevate her to be connected with such a grand estate as Twelve Oaks was turning out to be, again.

If Beau ever had thoughts about making Ella the mistress of Twelve Oaks he never said—but then he wouldn't have. His years in New York had not plowed up his southern roots. He was cool and reserved and remote and never said what he felt; if he had to say an unpleasant thing he turned it 'round so that it was by way of being a compliment. He packed his new library with gold- and gilt- bound leather books that he ordered by the cartload.

"What do you think of them, Ella?"

"Oh!" she said gleefully, with never any thought that they were actually meant for reading. "They're so pretty, Beau!"

He had looked at her then, swiftly, and had tried to hide the pitying look that came over his face with laughter. Of course Ella could not be blamed for her good, untrammeled ways.

"I am awfully glad that Mrs. Benteen could spare you today," he said easily. "Was it awfully hard for you to get away, Ella?"

"No—not very. The Fontaines came up to sit a spell with the family. But I'm not regular family, you know. Aunt Sue doesn't care what _I _do."

"I am very sorry for her loss—and for your loss, Ella," Beau said, with the same earnest sincerity that he always had. He was so sincere and gentle that Ella did not know how to respond.

"Oh, Uncle Will was a good man—for a Cracker," she said flippantly, but it was not the right thing to say. She found that out too late. Beau's eyes flashed reproachfully at her. Ella flushed. What had she said wrong? She was only repeating what she had heard Mrs. Fontaine say to Letty Tarleton the day before.

"I-I didn't mean…" she stammered, but Beau was too polite to let her apologize. He offered his arm and Ella took it, and together they went to look at the marble floors for the ballroom, which had been laid the day before.

Ella felt a little of the impropriety of their situation as they went inside the house together. She had never been taught certain things but she _did _have the barest inkling of what was right and wrong for girls to do, according to the old code. It had been imparted to her all throughout her life, the remnants of that unspoken code. Ladies should be quiet and docile and pretty and sweet and flattering to others—she knew that, but she did not know how to do it. She knew the ultimate goal, but had never been given a means to that end. And the world was so different now—ladies so often had to act in an unladylike way, to keep things running as they were supposed to. Girls no longer had mammies to dress their hair and lace their corsets. Ladies of the house did not have a fleet of slaves to bend to their bidding, and had to cook and clean themselves, if they could not hire free darkies to do it for them. And free darkies were scarcer in Clayton County than they were in the big cities—in Atlanta, Savannah, and Charleston. This manual labour left little time to teach the old customs, though they were frequently talked over and referred to.

And Ella had never learned by example how to behave.

She did have the feeling that perhaps it wasn't exactly proper for her to spend so much time with Beau. Of course they weren't alone—but the Negroes and the poor-white workers and carpenters hardly counted as chaperones. And they _were_ cousins, which would have made it all quite proper—if Ella had not been completely sure that Beau was in love with her.

Ella was entirely sure that he was in love with her. She had never thought of it at first, but her aunt's insinuations—which Sally had taken to aping in a haughty and knowing sort of way—were not entirely lost on Ella. Her mind was not made for analysis but the significance of broader hints did not escape her.

"Oh, Ella is 'practicing,'" said Suellen caustically, in reference to Ella's small, dainty movements at the supper table, that seemed so strange to the rest of them. The rest of them just slopped their food but at the table, Ella was erect of posture and delicate in a way that years' of a mammy's tutelage could hope to instill in a girl who lacked such innate manners. They were instinctual in Ella, as much a role of her breeding as her heavy coil of hair and her tip-tilted eyes.

"She's practicing for the day when she'll lord it over us at Twelve Oaks, aren't you, Ella?"

"She'll forget all about her poor relations then!" cried Sally. "She will be too high to associate with us, won't you, Ella?"

Ella had merely laid down her fork and knife in confusion, but Uncle Will had said, "Now Sue, now Sal, that's enough. Ella Lorena, you haven't done anything wrong."

But Ella mulled it over in her mind and at last came to the right conclusion. Oh, they thought—they thought she would marry Beau! Why should they think it? He was only her cousin and her friend.

But those words had made her more aware of him—and aware of the way that he looked at her. His gray eyes that were so drowsy the rest of the time, became more alert and there was something of yearning in their depths, when he looked at her. When they rode out together, all afternoon, and came back, and she was pink-cheeked and flushed and her hair was escaping its net. He had several times made a movement like he wanted to push the curls from her face but did not dare. Once he had taken hold of a red-brown strand and twined it, for an instant, around his finger. The grey eyes locked on the hazel. But then a cold, dull look had passed over Beau's face and he had taken his hand away. He ran his hands through his own pale hair, pulling at it, as though he was suddenly very angry with himself. And then he touched his spurs to the side of his horse and roared past her, ahead of her, muttering curses under his breath.

Ella had hung back, her lips parted over her little white teeth, in a flush of emotion. Beau _was _in love with her—even if he was a bit more removed after that. They never went off alone together again, and he never touched her except in cool cordiality. He kept his hands balled by his sides as if he were a little afraid of his feelings overpowering his will—but if a struggle did rage within him he never let the baser, more elemental feelings triumph over him. Beau was a gentleman—but there was never more any doubt in Ella's mind that he did _want_ her.

Want her—she was not sure exactly the significance of that want. She was very young and inexperienced—she thought that want was the same as love and so she never made any distinction between the two, distinct feelings.

What she knew of love came from novels—outdated novels that came to Tara who knew how. In the novels men roared and blustered and cursed and fought duels to show they wanted the ladies—and ladies fainted willingly into their arms. And then they were married and went to live together in a castle on the moors somewhere.

And Ella, who had never supposed that that sort of love might come to her, began to love Beau Wilkes as passionately as she suspected that he loved her. And she began to hope.

But she was never carried away by feelings, for Ella had a shrewd head for business and deals on her shoulders. She realized that if she married Beau he would take her away from Tara, so that she might be able to breathe in peace, without anyone glaring at her or slinging pointed barbs in her face. Yes, Beau would take her away—but she would never again be so far away from Tara that she would not be able to see it, to go to it. She felt as though she might die if she were ever uprooted from it—the way that the tall Georgia pines that clung so hardily to the red soil, withered up at the roots and died if they were ever planted anywhere else.


	3. Chapter 3

Rhett Butler came to Tara twice a year—once after the spring planting, and again in the fall, when the crop was in. For days before his visits Tara was in a state of upheaval and uproar. Suellen O'Hara Benteen had not come down so far in the world that she had forgotten what sort of a man Rhett Butler was; and things in the world had not changed so much for Rhett's status to have lost its meaning.

Perhaps that is not right, the last bit—perhaps the world had changed just enough for a man like Rhett Butler, with all of Rhett Butler's injured and patched and re-patched reputation, and all of Rhett Butler's riches, to attain a certain dignity of status that he had never enjoyed since he had been ejected from West Point forty years earlier. In the antebellum South, that and a host of other scandals had prevented him from every really attaining the level of polite society—during the war he had been branded a positive Scallawag, and after it, a speculator. But now, with Reconstruction only just behind them, Atlanta and Charleston and Savannah—those last bastions, last holdouts of Southern gentility—could not seem to remember why they had ever disliked him in the first place. Of course they did dislike him a little out of habit—but what was the use of disliking Rhett when there were so many other and worse things and people in the world to rail against? The ones who had hated him most bitterly were beginning to die off and the latest generation was far less disapproving than their parents and grandparents had been. So Rhett's star had risen, as the nice, genteel folks' stars had fallen, and now they were on nearly the same footing again, as far as social position was concerned. And it must be said that the long estrangement from his wife had not hurt him.

He was received, if not pleasantly, very matter-of-factly, by the Old Guard. No matter his human failings, underneath he was one of them—a Charlestonian—a South Carolinian by birth—a Southerner. And the breed was being so diluted these days, by migratory Yankees and foreigners of all kinds, that the oldest families clung to the slightest similarities in disposition in any one they saw. _You are like us_, their eyes said, _and there are so few of us left_.

Financially, Rhett left them in the dust, all of those good families—the Elsings and Meades and Merriweathers and Bonnells and Picards. They were so thoroughly genteel that though they lived far more comfortably now than in the days following the war, they had never managed to really get back on their collective feet again. And Rhett Butler was a very rich man. Perhaps this is why the old black mark of his reputation was ignored—money had not mattered to the oldest of the Old Guard but to some of the newer ones it mattered very much. The steely resolve of pride that had defined them and their actions was being stripped away by the prosaic necessities and realities of existence. Seventeen years after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, slow starvation was no longer the badge of honor that it had once been.

Legally, Ella Lorena was the ward of her brother Wade, since he had come of age the year before, but Wade seldom wrote to her, and he visited her even less, and he could not support her as a fledgling law clerk. In his childhood Wade Hampton Hamilton had been cared for at Tara but his expenses in food and clothing and education were always covered by his step-father. He loved Uncle Rhett but he had hated being 'provided for' by him—Wade was one of the 'proud' Hamiltons and hated being provided for by anyone. But Ella was a Kennedy, and Wade did not mind leaving her upbringing in the hands of one more capable than himself.

It was Rhett who paid, in a lump sum, twice yearly, the money for Ella's food, her dresses, her medicine if she was sick, her frills and furbelows that suited a woman of her education; he had bought her a pony, and he put into trust and managed the money that was made from Kennedy's Emporium, the chain of stores that her father had owned in Atlanta. Ella was to have it given over to her when and if she were married; if she were never married, the money would be used to provide to her in her dotage.

But that was nearly the end of his involvement with her. Rhett was not a fan of sending cheques—he liked to deliver his payments in person. Ella supposed that it was so that he could analyze the return on his investment in her. Twice a year he came down to Tara on the train in the afternoon and left on the evening train back to Atlanta, giving him a window of two or three hours to make flattering comments to Aunt Suellen, that made her giggle like a schoolgirl, to admire how her children had grown, and to walk with Will Benteen about the fields and to feign interest in Tara. The few minutes that were left over, he devoted to Ella.

Rhett liked to see Ella well-dressed and well-fed—on each occasion of their meeting he conducted the most rudimentary and shallow investigations into her situation. Was she happy? Were they treating her all right? Did she need anything? No? Well, there's a good girl, Ella Lorena, and give us a kiss—for he must be going if he was to make the train out of town.

What a fuss they were made to go through, Ella thought, as she dusted the living room and rubbed furniture wax into the scarred mahogany furniture, for such a short visit! For though Rhett stayed only a little while, all of Tara must be primped and polished for days in advance of his coming, lest he happen to feel the need, for example, to pop into the kitchen or the upstairs maid's room that had not been used for its intended purpose since Dilcey had gone to live with her daughter in Philadelphia after Pork's death. It did not matter that Uncle Rhett never ate with them or visited any part of the house but the veranda or the parlor—everything must be in gleaming order—just in case.

The people at Tara had no servants; they could not afford them. Uncle Will had had the help of two free Negroes, Junius and Emancipation, to run the farm. The rest of the work they did themselves. But in the week before one of Rhett's visits, Junius's fat, broad black wife came down to Tara to do the cooking and some of the washing—and doing it very poorly, before she knew she would be paid nonetheless for her duties. She rolled her red-brown eyes at them in chagrin and annoyance, for she had a fine opinion of herself and considered herself much above the position of the Benteens, whom she considered a slight outgrown of the classification 'poor white.'

When she had finished the washing and the cooking, she was made to hang about the place during Rhett's visit, so that he see her and infer from her presence that the Benteens were doing well enough to have a hired cook and washerwoman. This was not the truth, and because Jessie looked uncomfortable in her starched white turban, and rolled her eyes with more aplomb than ever, Ella did not think that the farce was a very believable one. She had the sneaking suspicion that Uncle Rhett knew exactly how they were doing at Tara, down to the last dime or penny and that no amount of hoodwinking would pull the wool over his eyes.

When the clop-clop of his horse was heard on the long drive heading up to Tara, Aunt Suellen herded them all out to the front porch, Uncle Will and Little Will and Sally and Ella and Jessie, rolling her red-brown eyes, an arranged them in what she thought was a pleasing scene of country domesticity. This time, Ella felt as well as saw the noticeable absence of Uncle Will. He was not leaning against the pillar to take the weight off his stump leg, his arms crossed and his eyes away on the fields, where he knew he should be, and from whence he resented being drawn away. He wasn't there now; he was gone.

Usually Ella was made to wear her best frilled dress—it was the only occasion she was allowed to wear the nice silks and satins that Uncle Rhett brought for her, because Sally was jealous and it wouldn't be fair for Ella to wear such nice things when Sally, the daughter of the house, couldn't. Today Ella was wearing her lank calico mourning gown and she felt Uncle Rhett's eyes slide disapprovingly over her as he dismounted and went to kiss Aunt Sue. Then he turned and his black eyes took in the rest of them.

Rhett Butler knew them all for what they were. He had very little use for any of the group huddled on the porch, and so he tossed them aside with a gentleman's courtesy. Will Benteen he had liked, and so he had treated Will like a compatriot, one of his own rank. The others were different.

Sally and Little Will were petulant, prickly children. There was nothing of the cuddly or cute about them. Their snub noses and wide mouths were not suited for grins, and only when Rhett produced two quarters from his waistcoat pocket did they bestow pale smiles upon him.

There was no doubt as to the reason that the children were the way they were. Suellen Benteen was just like them—a petulant, prickly woman. If she heard someone had acquired something of value she wanted it, no matter what it was or if she had any use for it. She was as covetous and greedy as a magpie.

He knew what they all were thinking, Rhett did—the children, with the quarters clasped tightly in their grubby fists were hoping for more, and were resentlful without knowing why; Suellen was flirting and laughing in a too-familiar way that showed she still, deep down, thought of herself as one of the O'Hara belles. The O'Hara belles! One in a convent, and one, he hoped, in Hell. They had not fared as well as they had hoped.

But Ella was a mystery to him. It pained Rhett to look at her. She was more Robillard than Kennedy or O'Hara, but she had the square jaw of her Irish grandfather, and when she thrust it forward in the way she was doing now, she reminded him of Bonnie. Bonnie, dear Bonnie…

Bonnie had been dead for ten years, but that had not stopped Rhett from remembering her. He remembered her most times as the young child she had been, but in a corner of his mind her grown had kept pace with those years—he thought back to her as a baby but he could not help think that she would be a grown-up girl now if she had lived. Fourteen years old—old enough for parties and dances. How he would have loved to escort her on his arm as a debutante, to smile indulgently over her conquests, to watch her black hair fly and her blue eyes gleam as she whirled about, the one bright point in his life. But Bonnie was dead, and here was Ella, not his child but her sister—and undeniably her sister when she set her Irish jaw in such a way.

What right had Ella, duller and less-loved, to look in any way like his own sparkling Bonnie? The thought hit Rhett, startlingly and disloyally, as he looked at her now, that Ella might be lovelier than Bonnie would have been. Her features were for the most part the soft, dark, mysterious French features of the Robillards, where Bonnie's had mirrored those of florid Gerald O'Hara exactly.

He had been in Paris for a year and had missed their last visit, and in that time Ella had grown. Rhett found himself feeling slightly disapproving of the change in her. The thought that Ella might have been a belle while Bonnie the plainer, homelier sister cut him to the core and made him want to scratch her face until it bled, and to take his knife and cut off all of her gleaming, red-brown curls until she was shorn and pitiful-looking. But even if he had, Rhett admitted, Ella would still have been lovely. Her high cheek bones and slanted eyes would have shown through, and her mouth, with its tender, too-short upper lip, would have been just as plump and pink and graceful. Pretty—she was damned pretty—the daughter of old, gingery Frank Kennedy! Frank _Kennedy_!

Why was she looking so calmly and coolly at him, her lip curled in a perpetual, well-bred sneer, as though all of her Robillard blood had come together to mingle in her veins as she looked down on him? Did she not know that he came from the Rhetts and the Kinnicuts and the Butlers of Charleston? Didn't she realize that she was living on charity? Did she mean to be so carelessly haughty, or was it simply a mark of her breeding?

Rhett's own lip curled amusedly as he surveyed Suellen and the Benteen children. Only one half-step up from Crackers—if that. What a misery they must make life for Scarlett's proud, regal girl!

He had been so absorbed in watching Ella that he did not see a figure step forward from the shadows of the porch and into the light. There was the sudden glimmer of sun on gold hair, and Rhett turned his gaze on the cool youth standing before him—a young blond man, with gray eyes, and a drowsy, remote look that he remembered—and hated.

"Oh, Uncle Rhett!" cried Ella, following his glance, "It's Beau, Uncle Rhett, my cousin Beau Wilkes. He's living over at Twelve Oaks now. It's Beau, Uncle Rhett—from the old days. Don't you remember him?"

Rhett said nothing, but bared his teeth. Beau took it for a smile, and stretched out his hand good-naturedly. Why should he have taken the gesture as anything else? Beau Wilkes was the sort of man people couldn't help smiling at, and he was the sunny sort who never expected anything bad of people.

"Mr. Butler," he said respectfully, and politely, "It's such a great delight to see you again, sir. I remember you very well from the old days, you know—and my mother always spoke so highly of you."

At the mention of Melanie, Rhett's eyes softened and he reached forward to shake the hand of the man who could not, after all, help being the son of Ashley Wilkes. But then he cast his eyes on Ella, and back to Beau. A gleam of amusement came into his face, and all of a sudden he looked very much like a sleek black cat that watches a mouse venture further and unknowingly toward a trap.

He kept back and forth at the faces a moment longer, until Suellen began to hint that perhaps they should go into the office and go over the accounts. Things had been _so _rough this past year and the crops hadn't turned out as well as they should, with Will being so poorly, and his death wouldn't improve farm matters much. And Ella Lorena was a growing girl, and of course she had to eat to keep up her strength, and almost all of her new dresses were getting shabby.

Rhett's eyes lingered again on Ella's shabby calico dress and he looked pointedly at Sally's black bombazine. Suellen flushed and began to stammer an excuse. Of course the girl was living on charity and it wouldn't do to put her in _too _high a position…

Rhett cut her dead.

"Ella is a Robillard and half-Kennedy, besides," he said, and Suellen flushed a deeper crimson. She had never forgotten that her own children might have been Kennedys if Fate and Scarlett O'Hara had not intervened. She led the way into the house with her head held high, and an injured look on her face. Sally and Little Will followed, at a reasonable distance behind, so that they could conveniently overhear whatever else was said.

Beau and Ella were left on the porch.

"Oh, I _do_ hope that you and Uncle Rhett get a chance to talk—and get to know one another again, Beau."

"So do I," he said amiably. "I have always admired Uncle Rhett. My father never talks of him, but my mother felt he was a great man. When I was a little boy, I thought he was a pirate! I should like the chance to speak with him."

"And perhaps," said Ella boldly—and significantly, "You might want to ask him—to ask him a question."

Her hazel eyes peeped into his and Beau suddenly felt some of the color drain from his cheeks. Her pointed significance was not lost on him. He bowed, and made some excuse, and went away, and so Ella was left alone, as the afternoon shadows lengthened into those of early evening. Why had Beau run away like that? And what had made him look so queer? The thought naggled at the corners of her mind persistently but she still could not figure it out. Oh, she thought, giving in finally to frustration, she wouldn't think of it now. She must get through this day first.

She'd think of it tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

Ella might have sat out all night, watching the sun sink below the red-furrowed fields and hearing the mockingbirds call to each other from the branches of the magnolia trees—drinking in the scent of the night-blooming jasmine and the cape jessamine buds and counting the stars that began to appear faintly overhead—if Suellen had not come and roused her from her dreaminess. Ella's aunt wore a scowl, which meant that the accounts had duly been gone over, and that the amount Rhett had given her for the girl's keep was not as much as she had hoped.

"What a lazy child you are!" she cried peevishly. "Go into the office and hurry up. Mr. Butler wants to speak with you and he hasn't much time before the train."

Ella got to her feet and went in to the dim office at the back of the house. The windows were dirty and flyspecked—apparently Jessie hadn't made it back here—and they let only a little light through. The entire apartment was a little ominous and gloomy.

Ella found Rhett sitting at the secretary, a very fine piece of furniture that had once belonged to Ellen O'Hara, with his feet propped up on the table. He made a gesture that indicated Ella should sit on the decrepit, sagging old sofa and face him, so he she did, primly, smoothing aside her modest bustle and crossing her wrists and ankles. Rhett waved a cigar at a long box in the corner.

"For you."

"Thank you," said Ella.

Rhett's red mouth turned up at one end—could this really be Scarlett's child? Scarlett herself would have leapt upon the package as soon as she had noticed it and would already be admiring the contents.

"Aren't you going to open it?"

Ella did not need to open it. She knew what it would be. A dress—Uncle Rhett always brought her a new dress. This one was a very pretty dress, done in the polonaise style, pink with ruffled underskirt of deeper rose. It was the cut and color that would have looked well on Bonnie—the girl Bonnie lingered in the recesses in his mind. Rhett had chosen it for this very reason, and because he thought the color would not suit Ella, with her reddish hair and pale skin. He was irked to find that it made her skin looked creamier and her curls more chestnut. It was perfectly suited for her, and she seemed so charmed by it that he suddenly felt ashamed of his pettiness.

"Sit down," he said gruffly, and Ella sat again. "I only have a little time before the train. Are you well?"

"Yes, Uncle Rhett."

"Good—good. How is Wade Hampton? Reading law—in Richmond, is it?"

"Baltimore."

"Ah, yes. Baltimore. I'd forgotten."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Rhett eyeing her cheap calico. Finally he asked,

"What happened to the black satin taffeta I brought for you last summer?"

"Aunt Sue made it over for Sally," Ella demurred. "It was too small for me, anyhow."

Rhett threw his cigar angrily onto the floor where it smoked against the rag rug. Suellen's Sally was a lanky thing, a half-head taller and a great many inches wider than Ella. Too small, indeed! He reached into his jacket for his billfold and counted out several notes, which he gave to the girl.

"I've given Suellen a great deal of money—which should cover all of your costs for food and clothing and music and any fripperies you might need over the next year—two years, if she were frugal—but she won't be. Ella, I have the strange sensation my money will be used instead to put a new roof on Tara and new gaiters on old Sal's feet, instead of yours. This is for you, Ella, in case you need it."

Ella did not count the money—she felt somehow that it would be in poor form to do it so blatantly. But she knew she must be holding in her hand over a hundred dollars—a hundred dollars! What would she do with so much money? What could she possibly need it for?

"Thank you," she said, and her eyes were shining so that Rhett felt doubly ashamed and a little annoyed at the girl. Why must she show so plainly the effect that any kindness had on her? Her cold haughtiness and her polite sneer were gone and she was almost openly weeping. What a pitiful little thing—a few cast-off, crumpled bills and said in a kind tone could reduce her to tears. Pitiful—the child of Scarlett O'Hara, pitiful! Scarlett had been a great many things but she had always been proud. How had things come to this, how had life wound him around to this moment, when he should find himself locked in a room with a sniveling child?

Rhett was so annoyed that he stood and crushed out his cigar, and gathered his things. "I'll be in Atlanta for a while, and then London," he told her. "So I will miss our next visit."

"Yes, Uncle Rhett." Now that he was going, she looked so forlorn. He wanted to be away from her and her wide, sad eyes. It was obvious that she would miss him, and this made Rhett feel even worse. She would miss him—he, who hardly ever gave her a thought when she was out of mind.

"I'll be in London until September, and then back in Atlanta," he stammered—rambling, because, for once in his life, Rhett Butler was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the face of this little, unloved girl—uncomfortable and ashamed because he could not love her as he felt he ought—because she had been his step-daughter, and Bonnie's sister—and because she had no one else to love her. "I'll be in Savannah at the close of the year—I've got a business venture there, with a Mr. Tazewell. He's got up a group of fellows who want to make up an automobile—Ella, do you know what an automobile is?"

She shook her head sadly—he could almost see the lump in her throat.

"It's a carriage—with no horses!" Rhett was falsely jovial. Ella tried to laugh but her mouth just twisted in a sad smile. She did not love her uncle but she was fond of him and sad to see him go. He was the only person who was kind to her—besides Beau. When he left Aunt Suellen would feel snubbed and cheated and she would take it out on Ella for days.

She did not want him to go so soon.

Rhett could not make his escape fast enough. He kissed her, his black moustache tickling her cheek. Then he started for the door.

"Wait!" Ella cried, and Rhett turned, with one black eye-brow raised in question.

"Well, what is it?" he asked. "Is there anything else, Ella?"

"Yes—oh—yes—you see, Uncle Rhett—I'm going to be married!"

Her eyes were no longer sad or teary, but green and fiery, glowing like a cat's in the semi-darkness.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rhett closed the door and sat down, and lit another cigar. He put his feet back in on the table and he looked to Ella as though he were enjoying himself. He puffed away in silence for a bit while she stood, vibrating like a plucked banjo-string, waiting for him to question her. He didn't right away. Rhett chuckled to himself a few times—but they were mirthless sounds, Ella thought. Finally he lifted one eyebrow and said,

"Well, it seems as though congratulations are in order, Ella Lorena. But to whom should I address them? Who are you planning to marry, child?"

At the 'child' Ella reeled her head back. She was suddenly cool and slightly sneering again. Child! When she was sixteen! Aunt Suellen's Susie was a year younger than her, and had been married when she was only fifteen, to George MacIntosh, and Uncle Rhett hadn't called _her_ a child! Ella resented that 'child.' And—and it was queer—but even though Uncle Rhett's voice was nice and caressing, she felt as though he were making fun of her in some way.

"I am going to marry Beau Wilkes," she told him haughtily.

Both of Rhett's eyebrows shot up in (Ella felt) mock surprise. Why wasn't his surprise more genuine? How could he have known, or figured it out, without her telling him?

"And when did he ask you to be his bride?" Rhett wondered, breathing out a plume of acrid smoke. "Was it picturesque, Ella? Did he press your hand and call you 'darling.' You must not tell me if he tried to take any liberties with you, for even if you enjoyed them, I should have to shoot him and I would likely kill him for I am a very good shot. Out with the details, child."

_Child_ again!

"He has not yet actually asked me to marry him," said Ella primly.

"Then how do you know he wants to?"

"Because he is in love with me!" burst Ella out, with a passionate display of feeling that made Rhett look more closely at her as he stubbed out his cigar in the ash-tray.

He looked at her searchingly—her snapping eyes, her flushed cheeks—and then he stood and crossed the room to the sideboard and opened the door to look underneath. He took out a bottle—Uncle Will had kept a dry house save for a little brandy, which was used in sickness. Rhett uncorked it, sniffed it, and then set it back in its place. He took from his pocket a silver flask and drank from that instead. When he turned back to Ella, he suddenly looked tired and very old.

"Ella, oh, Ella," he said ruefully. "Have you ever heard that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?"

"What is that? Is it Shakespeare?"

"No, my litter ignoramous, it's someone else entirely. But it doesn't matter who said it first Ella—it's been proven to be true on many occasions. The apple doesn't fall frar from the O'Hara tree—or from the Wilkes tree. Ella, did it ever occur to you that Beau hasn't asked you to marry him because he doesn't intend to marry you at all?"

Her mouth dropped open indignantly over little white teeth.

"Oh, he might have led you on a bit," said Rhett, seeing she was about to unleash upon him a torrent of words to prove her side of it. "He might have caressed you a little, or undressed you with his eyes…" Here Rhett's eyes roamed over Ella's light and pleasing form, "But tell me, has he ever tried to make love to you—has he called you darling or sweetheart—or 'compared thee to a summer's day?'"

Ella knew at once that all of the insinuations she'd heard from County people about Rhett Butler were true. He was a beast—a horrid man—he wasn't—he wasn't…

"It's no use damning me with you eyes," Rhett told her, amusedly. "Beau Wilkes isn't going to marry you, Ella, because you aren't the sort of girl a Wilkes would marry. Oh, yes, you're family, and you're sweet enough, and your father was rumored to be a gentleman, but your mother—well, you're graceful and charming enough, and your manners are well, but you haven't the necessary breeding behind you. Let's just leave it at that."

"He does love me!" Ella spat furiously—furious because there was a rung of truth to Rhett's words. Beau never had tried to court her or woo her—or done any of those things that Rhett said. Did that mean he was right—and she was wrong about everything? Oh, no—no—never. He must be telling her a lie. She glared at him. Ella had never, in her young life, hated anyone more than she hated Rhett Butler at that moment. Her eyes were venomous, like a snake's.

"You are confusing love with lust," said Rhett lazily. "No doubt the fine Mr. Wilkes lusts after you—he'd have to be blind not to do it. But he will never love you, Ella, not in the way that you mean—or want."

"How dare you say such mean things about Beau! You don't understand him! You don't _know_ him like I do!"

Her hurled words silenced him for a moment. Rhett put his hand over his eyes, wearily.

"God damn you, Scarlett O'Hara! I hope he damns you to the pit of Hell."

"Oh, I don't care what you say! I love him and he loves me, and I will marry him!"

Rhett took his hand away so that their eyes could meet.

"Listen to me, Ella, and hear me," he said. "Beau Wilkes doesn't love you—and you don't really love him. But that is neither here nor there. If you were Helen and he were Paris—or you Hero and he Leander—if you were the great love of our time…I would still wring your neck before I'd let you marry a Wilkes. I'd rather see you torn limb from limb and cast to the dogs. As long as I have a breath in me you won't marry him. I'd tear you to pieces myself before I'd let that happen."

Ella recoiled at the cold finality in his words. A bright, hard fury was burning within her. Where had it come from? She had never felt in such a way before. She was burning and full of hatred, and livid beyond the power of comprehension. She reeled back and away from him and cast her hand about for the nearest object. It was a china shepherdess-garish and ugly but highly prized by Aunt Suellen. Ella flung it at him. Rhett stood and dodged away from her, and Ella was surprised to find that he was laughing.

"Oh, everyone was right about you!" she cried, and Rhett laughed harder. "You're not a gentleman."

Suddenly his laughter was replaced by a cold, dull look in his eyes. He took hold of her arm, firmly.

"No, I'm not a gentleman," he said. "Someone said that to me before—and I showed her how true it was. Don't make me do the same to you, Ella."

There was no longer any doubt in his mind, as he left her there, shivering in the chill of her own cold anger, that she was, after all, Scarlett O'Hara's child.


	5. Chapter 5

Ella did not see Beau for two days after Rhett's visit—which was nothing very spectacular or out of the ordinary, for she sometimes went a day or two without seeing him, when he was away in Atlanta to manage his father's mills or down in Macon visiting his Burr relatives. But Ella could not shake a strange feeling that this time something was rather off. It was as though the sands had shifted and a strange new terrain was taking shape between them. The sandbar had been washed away by some strong current, and only the rocky shoals were left—and the deep, still, unfamiliar dark waters.

The two days grew into three—four—and five, and finally a week had passed, during which time she had not see neither hide nor tail of Beau, and Ella began to ooze a continual, nervous perspiration. Something had changed. But what was it? What was it that had gone wrong? And why didn't Beau come?

If Ella had been a more introspective sort, she might have realized, in this time, that she did not miss him; rather, she missed being out and away from the stifling walls of Tara, riding through the red fields with the springing green cotton, with the wind in her hair, or rambling about the Wilkes lawn, looking over the flower-bed. She did not miss Beau but she missed having someone to talk to, who did not always approach her with resentment or condescension, who actually listened to what she had to say. But Ella was too absorbed in wondering what it was that could keep him away for so long to look inward more deeply. Where was Beau? When would he come to her?

On the morning of the eighth day, a letter came from him—a short note. Sally brought it, and lingered to see what it was about. Ella hated to open it before Sally's watchful eyes, but she could not resist—a letter from Beau! Perhaps it would be a love letter! She had never in her life had any letter from a person other than Wade, and certainly never a love letter. She tore it open—and her face turned very white as she scanned the lines.

"What is it?" asked Sally gleefully, seeing by her cousin's face that it could not be good news.

"It is nothing of any importance," Ella said with all the dignity she could muster, but Sally was astute enough to know that she was lying. If it were really of no importance she would have fed it to the stove and not even bothered to watch it burn—not fold it neatly and tuck it into her bosom. And she certainly would not have run away, with her face so white, and eyes so blazing, to be alone where she could read it over again in peace—in peace! Blessed, blessed peace.

Ella ran all the way to Twelve Oaks. It was evening, and the crew of workers were gone for the day, and the house was watchful and silent as the shadows began to slant over its proud façade. Ella looked at it and for the first time she hated it, for she understood now that she would never be mistress of this place.

Oh, she had wanted to! She had wanted to live here, going about the quiet, dignified halls with keys clattering at her belt. She already knew the place intimately, had been all over it. She had wanted it to love her as much as she loved it—_had_ loved it. She wanted to watch the sun rise over it, turning the white columns faintly pink—she wanted to bask in the last of the sun's rays as it dropped down behind the crest of the back hill. She wanted to see the light playing in checkered shadows under the last of the tall proud oaks that ringed round it—had ringed round it since the days when Indians went, on soft, moccasined feet, on their way as the oaks kept watch. These tall oaks had seen so much—had been part of the forest primeval—had beckoned their arms to the North Georgia pioneers—had been burnt and blackened by Sherman's army as they charged through, changing the world forever.

But she would never stand beneath them as a bride! She would never be mistress of Twelve Oaks—she would never be Beau's wife—she saw that now.

Of course he had not written anything that would lead her to think that in his letter—not directly. But then, he had never directly hinted that there might be any possibility of a match between them. No, not directly—not even indirectly.

Ella unfolded her letter and in the last of the slanting sun-rays, read the black words. Beau only wrote that he had gone to Atlanta to see his father's mills—and that, while there, he had got wind of a wonderful business opportunity, "with a Mr. Tazewell." He would be going to Savannah right away to meet with him—and would be there a month, maybe more. He wrote that he would miss her and would always cherish their friendly summer together. There was something so awful and final about his words. She knew with cold certainty that when he came back things would be quite different between them. She did not know why she should think that but she saw in her mind the frightened, remote flash of Beau's gray eyes and knew it would be so.

If he cared for her, he would not have gone away from her. And his letter would not be such a cold, cordial thing!

Ella wanted to cry, but she would not cry there, at Twelve Oaks. She would not let the house bask quietly in her unhappiness. She felt as though it was watching her as she tore the letter into small bits and scattered them on a little night wind that came up from the pastures and ruffled her auburn curls. Thoughts were flitting through her mind, and she felt she should be able to piece them together into a picture. A business venture, in Savannah—with a Mr. Tazewell—Tazewell—the named seemed familiar, didn't it?

Something came to her—something someone had said… "I'll be in Savannah at the close of the year—I've got a business venture there, with a Mr. Tazewell." Who had said that? Why—Uncle Rhett had said that. That was the connection! What else had he said?

"I would still wring your neck before I'd let you marry a Wilkes." That rang a bell. How black and hateful he had looked, saying that!

"I'd rather see you torn limb from limb and cast to the dogs." He had said that, too. Hadn't he? Yes—Ella distinctly remembered him saying it.

"As long as I have a breath in me you won't marry Beau Wilkes."

The last piece of the puzzle locked into place and something clicked in Ella's mind as the whole picture became very clear. Mr. Tazewell—Savannah—her being 'cast to the dogs!' She knew at once how Beau had heard of the wonderful opportunity in Savannah. Uncle Rhett had found him out in Atlanta and told him about it. Uncle Rhett had known that Beau's quick mind, his business sense, his entrepreneurial spirit, would not let him pass up such a venture.

Uncle Rhett had ruined everything between them—and he had done it on purpose!

Ella felt hot and cold at once. It was a curious feeling. She was shaking—trembling—but she would not put up a hand against one of the tall white columns to steady herself. She was so angry that she wanted to spit—to desecrate the holy Wilkes ground on which she stood. She hated Beau because he did not love her. He had never loved her. She had been so blind to think so, so stupid and foolish! And he had known what she felt and he had pitied her—she saw at once that that was what had been in his eyes, the slow, soft look. He had known she cared and he did not care for her. No—no! He _had _wanted her.

Something came back to her with the full force of a blow that almost made her sink to her knees. "No doubt the fine Mr. Wilkes lusts after you…but he will never love you, Ella, not in the way that you mean—or want."

That is what Rhett had said. Oh, it was true—it _was_ true…the thought flashed disloyally through her mind. Never before had she suspected Beau of having base, carnal impulses. But Rhett was right, and she had been blind, and stupid! She had let herself be an object of lust to him, and had loved him, and had not known the difference. Ella wished Beau would appear before her so she could scratch his face and tear at his pale yellow hair. A pretty dream of hers was shattered—the first pretty dream she had ever had—had ever allowed herself to have. The death of that dream hurt her as palpably as being rent limb from limb. Her heart rebelled. Oh, that pretty, pretty dream! She would not give it up!

She would not give it up! Her mind worked, finding a way to reconcile what she knew in her heart with what she wanted so desperately to tell herself. Beau had not loved her—but—but…

"But I could have made him love me!" she cried, her voice scattering a flock of birds that had settled to roost for the night in the branches of the tallest oak. They flew off, darker shapes against the dark sky. Her mind went frantically, honing and smoothing this idea so that it soon became a fact instead of a mere tenuous possibility.

"I could have made him care," she told herself, sinking down on the wide, marble steps. "He was half-way to caring—I could have flirted with him—and—and—and perhaps let him take some liberties, if he'd wanted. And then he would have married me—he would have had to do it. He's a gentleman, and his conscience wouldn't let him do otherwise."

She did not think, or realize, that many a doomed marriage had been forged in such a way, out of duty instead of love. She did not see that she and Beau were unlike in the ways that mattered most—oh, for all of her instinctual, charming, graceful ways, they were not alike. There was something as settled as bedrock in Beau. He was as slow moving as the yellow river that wound about the County. There was fire in Ella, something quick and mercurial, that was the legacy of her Irish grandfather, come to fruition and born out of her own cooped up, hen-pecked history. She was vibrant and young, and she had not seen enough of the world to learn that the same elemental fire that burned in her veins did not burn in all people.

"He would have come to love me," she said, and this time she did pound her fist against the white column. She wanted to tear it down and howl out of frustration and desperation and a peculiar yearning.

"We would have been so happy." Her voice broke, and a strange sense of despair came over her. She must go back to Tara now, and stay there—and there was no longer any hope that she might escape that place's oppression, her aunt's naggings, her cousins' twitting and resentment.

For the first time Tara felt not like a beloved home to her—but a prison. She could not get away from it now and yet be near it—near it—always.

After a while, the despair was moved aside by anger. Rhett—"Rhett Butler"—she spat out the foul taste that came into her mouth when she said his name aloud. She was no longer angry at Beau for going away and leaving her. It was not his fault. He loved her, but he had been lured away. Although Ella thought suddenly that Beau must be very weak to be manipulated in such a way, to not see Rhett's invitations for what they really were. Oh, she wouldn't think about it now. She loved Beau—dear Beau. It was Rhett she hated. He had ruined her chances of happiness. Ella stood, a new thought surging and singing along in her young, healthy blood. Rhett would be in Atlanta until the end of the month—she would go to him, and tell him just what she thought of him—she would…she would threaten him. She knew things about him that no one else could know. Things about—about her mother. There were only dark bits and pieces in her child's mind, black, horrifying snatches of memory—but they must mean something. She would go and make him call Beau back and then they would all come back home and things would go on as they had been. And they had been so sweet until Rhett had come and pulled it all to pieces.

Ella, who had not left Clayton County in five years—who had never been anywhere by herself—she would go to Atlanta and she would confront Rhett Butler. And she would find some way to make things right again. She must find some way to make them so—her whole happiness depended on it.


	6. Chapter 6

Ella arrived in Atlanta with a small valise in her hand and a hot, too-full feeling in her heart. In her valise she had the few pretty dresses she owned, a hundred dollars, and the gold watch that Pork had given her that had been her grandfather's. In her heart, she had anger and hurt pride and feelings, and an all-encompassing desperation that she should make things work out in the way she wanted in the end—she would—she must!

It had not been hard for her to get away. She had slipped away from Tara in the early hours of the morning—when Aunt Suellen and the children were still asleep in bed. They all had the tendency to lay abed late into the morning—it was part of the reason that Tara never ran as smoothly as it was supposed to. A determined soul could combat against want and poverty and make even the poorest farm produce—but not a lazy soul. And Suellen was lazy, and now that Uncle Will was gone, Tara's one stalwart was no more. Ella knew it would not be long until the whole place fell into disrepair—the lands rented out to poor white and darky sharecroppers, the whitewashed chipping away from the brick, the gardens becoming jungly and overgrown.

It hurt her to think of Tara in such a way. She thought of it as she began the long walk into Jonesboro, where she would catch the train to Atlanta. It was five miles and Ella was determined to march every step of the way with her head held high. After the first mile she had begun to flag. Her boots, which were too small, pinched, and her valise felt as though it were packed with bricks. She thought of turning and going home. But the thought of stumbling in, like a wayward child who has run away, while the rest of the family was eating breakfast, stopped her. Pride and resolve burned anew way down in her soul and she went on.

Fate and Little Joe Fontaine intervened at mile three, and Ella gratefully clambored aboard the plank wagon and sat next to him up on the box. Little Joe watched her with some interest as she alighted in the station-yard.

"Going to 'Lanta, Ella?"

"Yes," she said primly. She did not care if he knew. She had not left a note for her aunt, and at least this way he could let the family know that she had not been carried away in the night. But she did not think her aunt would worry about her, either way. Still, this was better.

"Goodby," she said, giving her hand to Joe, and suddenly had the peculiar, heart-twisting feeling that she was saying goodby to him forever—that she would not see him again. How strange! She had never especially liked Joe Fontaine, with his gap-toothed grin and his penchant for whisky. But still, she felt that the moment of long parting lay between them and she was a little sad. But that was just a trick of the mind, some silly sentimentality brought on to her by the tumult of feelings that had swept over her in the past few days. She was going to Atlanta for a day or two, a week at the most; she would speak to Rhett Butler—Ella no longer thought of him as 'Uncle Rhett'—and then she would be back.

But the strange feeling lingered as the train pulled away. Ella turned her face to the window and watched the green, fertile fields flashing by, here and there a burst of vibrant red where the rain-washed soil showed through. 'Goodby—goodby!' beat her heart as every familiar landmark came rushing toward her and then was suddenly left behind. How strange she should feel this way!

When the train pulled into the Atlanta station, she was near to tears. Her vision blurred as she stepped off and collected her valise. But then she forgot to be sad or heartsick or even angry.

Ella had not been to Atlanta in five years—she was surprised to see how much and how vastly things had changed in that time. The station house had been rebuilt, made larger, and people bustled to and fro with alarming speed. All manner of people whirled about her—men and women in their city finery talked and screeched in flat, hard, northern voices that hurt her ears. Shabby, well-bred ladies with baskets of split oak on their arms rushed forward to greet equally shabby loved ones that alighted from the train behind Ella. White and black faces—and so many of them. Ella was surprised to see that the black folks were dressed just as fine as the white folks. The only Negroes she had ever known were the country hired hands and the sharecroppers, and they did not carry themselves with such placid self-assurance as these. She gaped at them, agog.

Across from the station had once been a row of warehouses—now fine red-brick buildings were going up in their place. A crew was working in front of them, and Ella heard the high lilt of Irish voices rise above the general din. The sound pleased her in some soul-satisfying way.

Ella had been born in Atlanta, and took a keen interest in the town, which had been founded in 1836. Since then it had been called Terminus and Marthasville, before becoming Atlanta. It had been the heart of the Confederacy in the war—and then it had been burned. Atlanta had died—but it was living again.

She felt proud of it, and had always felt a deep kinship with the town, because it had come back to life in the same year that she had been born. In 1866, both she and poor, ruined Atlanta, were mewling newly-living things. She felt that her own story was linked with the town because she had been born—and Atlanta, born again—in the same year. How bright and bustling it was, now! How fresh, and exciting! You would never know from looking at it that Sherman had ever been through here, thought Ella, with strong satisfaction.

In the intervening years, Atlanta had seen dark times, but things were looking up. Reconstruction had not been kind to most of the South, but it had spared Atlanta from the deepest darkness. There was an influx of carpetbaggers and speculators into the bustling town, making it a city in its own right. It might have died as slow a death as places in Alabama or Tennessee, but the fact that people were drawn to it kept it living. For a while, it had been as though the city was holding its breath—but now that Reconstruction was on the way out, and the economic panic was over—the city was breathing again, heartily and gustily.

Ella watched with interest for a while before she remembered that she had come here on a mission, and that she must get to it. She began to feel a little lost and afraid. She had never really supposed she should get this far. Her plan had been nebulous and she had never thought beyond the first step: I must get to Atlanta. Now that she was in Atlanta, she did not know what to do, or where to go. Oh, why hadn't she planned things out? Why had she been so impetuous?

A streetcar clanged by and stopped, but Ella did not know if she should get on. Where would it take her? What was the fare? Before she could make up her mind, the car clanged its bell again and went away. Oh, now what would she do?

A black carriage pulled up next to her, and a smiling black boy leaned down toward her. "Goin' somwheres, missy?" he asked.

Ella hesitated. She did not know if she should get into a carriage with a strange darky. Suppose he rode away with her and took her someplace awful? Suppose he stole her valise or tried to—tried to…

A matron standing near by noticed her uncertainty and gave an encouraging nod.

"It's fine—you can go with Lincoln," she said. "He rents the carriage from the Bonnells and he will drive you wherever you need to go for a nickel. Have you got a nickel, dearie?"

"I have."

"Then its quite safe. If you've no one coming to collect you, you should go with Linc. It's better than waiting on the street—you'll ruin your pretty pink dress. You'll be quite safe. I'll vouch for him. He's a fine boy, aren't you Lincoln?"

"Yass'm, I sho is," said Lincoln happily.

Persuaded, Ella handed Lincoln her nickel and climbed aboard. The nice lady smiled to encourage her again.

"Tell him where you want to go."

Ella faltered again. She had never thought where she would go once she was in Atlanta. She thought for a moment of asking him to take her to a hotel—but she did not want to part with _too _much of her money, and she had a faint idea that it would be a little shocking of her to check into a hotel—by herself, an unmarried girl, with no chaperon. But it could not be avoided—she didn't know anyone in town, and had no where else to go. Oh—yes she did! For she had suddenly remembered a red-brick house with a slate roof. She did have a place to go!

"Peachtree street," she said, the words coming very easily and naturally. Lincoln grinned and said 'Hup-hup,' to the horses and the carriage rattled off toward its destination. Ella grinned back and the queer, lonely feeling of the outsider was lifted from her. Why, she wasn't an outsider—not here—not in Atlanta. She wasn't an outsider—she had been born here; so in a sense, Ella thought, she was _home_.

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Miss Pittypant Hamilton looked up from her salts and met Ella's eyes—and began to flutter again. Ella had heard enough of the old woman's history to know that she went into a faint at the slightest provocation, even the turning-up of an unexpected visitor—and, Ella thought, watching her sigh and sniff her salts again, she was _enjoying _her hysterics.

"Ella Lorena!" she cried, her babyish mouth puckering. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Miss Pitty had asked the question a dozen times in the half-hour that Ella had been inside the house on Peachtree street, but not one of those times had she ceased her flutterings for long enough to let Ella answer.

"Is yo' brother come wid you?" asked old, grizzled Uncle Peter, with a hopeful gleam in his eye. Ella knew it had been many years since Uncle Peter had seen 'Mist' Charles onlies' son' and the look of longing in the old darky's face was so heart-stirring that she felt that Wade's long absence from those who so obviously loved him had been very cruel. She shook her head 'no,' and Peter's face, and Miss Pitty's, fell in mutual sorrow.

"Ella Lorena!" said Miss Pitty again. "What _are_ you doing here?"

This time, she paused long enough for Ella to say, "I've come to visit, Auntee. I-I was bored down at Tara and I thought I-I'd come see all the old folks."

She knew it would never do to let on the true reason for her visit and so she dropped her eyes demurely, adding, "I do hope you will let me stay with you for a few days. I've so many nice memories of being a little girl here, and I did miss you—and Uncle Peter—so."

Pittypat's vanity was appealed to, and she preened. But then her babyish mouth pursed up again.

"It won't do!" she cried. "I simply _can't_ have any visitors this week. Why, I've the Ladies sewing circle and the Meades are coming for dinner day after tomorrow. Any my nerves—I've felt so sick…with India gone away to Macon until Friday…"

Ella remembered something that Wade Hampton had told her once, when he returned from a visit with his aunt: "The only way to get Aunt Pittypat to do anything is to put a proposition to her in a way so that it will seem like it was her own idea." Ella blessed Wade for those words now. She stood as if she were about to leave, and smoothed her skirts and gathered her valise.

"Well, I am sorry you can't have me as your guest, Auntee. I suppose I shall have to go to the hotel. And oh, I was so glad that I should have the chance to stay with you. It seemed such a lucky coincidence, you know, with Miss India being away—I've heard there is an awful lot of night-prowling in this neighborhood, and of course Uncle Peter is getting a little deaf in his old age. Of course it will look queer, me being family, and you not having me. People will might talk about it, but we won't mind that. And," Ella's voice grew low and mournful, "You know, it would have made you seem so lively and sociable, entertaining a young person such as myself in your home. But if you can't have me, I suppose it can't be helped."

She turned, and busied herself tying the ribbons of her bonnet. In the glass, she could see a gleam come into Aunt Pitty's eyes, and her mouth begin to work thoughtfully.

"Well," said Pitty, "I suppose you could stay in..." she had been about to say: in your mother's old room. "In the upstairs guest room. And if there are night-prowlers, it would be good to have a young person in the house. Young people are such light sleepers. You'd wake up if there were any person trying to get in and you could scare them away or something. And Dolly has been putting on airs, because Raoul comes home so often and brings such gay and charming people with him…"

"Of course I wouldn't mind making a contribution to cover my expenses." Ella fingered in her bag and drew out a gold piece, which she set on the table, and saw the Aunt Pitty's and Uncle Peter's eyes light up. It had not been so long since the panic that five dollars in gold was not a large amount to the impoverished Old Guard Atlantans.

"And maybe," Ella continued, as though the idea had just come to her, "I could write to Wade, and tell him what a good time I had here, and how he must come and see you."

"Oh, Peter," cried Pitty, clapping her fat little hands, "Do you suppose we could let Ella stay for a little while?"

"I s'pose we mout," said Peter loftily, still eying the gold.

And just like that, Ella was installed as a temporary resident of the house on Peachtree street. She went up to her room to unpack her valise with the satisfied air of one who has faced down the Sphinx and unraveled its riddles with ease.

"I think I'm going to like it here," she said, her eyes glowing greenly, as she peered at her reflection in an old, gold-rimmed mirror—a mirror that had reflected another pair of green tip-tilted eyes, many times—and many years ago.


	7. Chapter 7

Ella did like Atlanta—and she was surprised to find that Atlanta seemed to like her back. No one had ever really liked her before. Her mother had been first too busy and then too dreamy to attend to her; the folks at Tara treated her like a nuisance and a burden now that Uncle Will was gone. Ella could scarcely remember Aunt Melanie Wilkes, but Aunt Melly had been kind to her. Ella might have counted her except that underneath she had always been sure that Aunt Melly pitied her a little. And as for Rhett…Ella would not think of him now.

There was something in the bustling town that matched the energy in her spirit; Ella thought that she had never felt this contented, or excited, in the County. Things were slow and settled there; here, everything was fresh and new. She made Uncle Peter drive her around so that she could see the town, and her keen eyes did not miss a single, thrilling detail.

She had asked after Rhett casually, and learned that he was living in a set of rooms at the Atlanta hotel. Ella wondered why he wasn't living at his own house—at the house he had shared with her mother—the red-stone Swiss chalet that loomed like a monster at the other end of Peachtree. But then, Rhett had never spent much time there, so Ella did not think it too strange when she heard that the house had been sold, to some Yankee friends of her mother's, the Barts.

She learned, too, that Rhett was out of town until the week-end, in Savannah, and Ella's heart burned again with fresh vim. No doubt he had gone there to set things up between Beau and Mr. Tazewell. She was reminded again of the purpose of her visit, and was sorry that she should have to wait a few days to tell Rhett Butler exactly what she thought of him. But she was not too sorry, for there were all manner of pleasant distractions to keep her until that day should come. Miss Pittypat flew hither and yon on her small feet in her number three shoes, tempting Ella with whatever delicacies she could muster, and getting together friendly, charming arrangements with the 'right people,' arranging fun times that Ella could write to Wade about.

The Meades, the Merriwethers, the Elsings, the Picards, the Wellburns…Ella remembered some of these people from her youth. She liked them. Any new face was a distraction from her perceived heart-break. And oh, her heart _was _broken. Any time Beau's name was mentioned—and it was mentioned often, as the people wanted to know about all the goings-on of the County—it was like a dull knife had slashed against her feelings. But mostly, when she was able to forget, she had a very good time.

"I just wish people would stop looking at me as though I've got two heads!"

They did look at her so strangely, when they thought she wasn't looking—Mrs. Meade's and Mrs. Merriwether's eyes running over her face and then meeting each others' gaze skeptically. Ella was a little embarrassed, for she thought they had picked up on some of her country ways, and she wondered if her dress wasn't a little too fine and fashionable for a girl her age. The old families and their daughters were dressed plainly and unfashionably…like Baptists, Ella thought, and squirmed under the searching gazes.

But really, Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether were thinking no such things. They did not care about Ella's pink dress, but were only wondering if this could possibly be the daughter of Scarlett O'Hara?

Her manners were so fine and dainty, and she was polite and charming and all things that a young girl of good-breeding should be. But her eyes—and her mouth—and the determined angle of her chin, left no doubt, no doubt at all, as to who her mother was. How could this be Scarlett's child?

"She's a dollbaby," said Mrs. Meade to Mrs. Merriwether, while Ella had run out to the porch to greet Mrs. Picard and her son Raoul. "It almost defies explanation how any child of Scarlett's, raised by Sue Benteen, could turn out so cute and sweet."

"It could be the Kennedy coming out in her," mused Mrs. Merriwether. "Or the Robillard. It can't be any of Scarlett's influence. Why, you know as well as I do that Scarlett is the worst kind of person that a woman can be…"

"Hush, Dolly, they're coming in—and it's plain to see that the child doesn't know a thing about her mother. I think its better that way. She's a nice, pretty girl, and I think we should make things easy for Ella Lorena. She can't be blamed for her mother's scandalous behavior, and Frank was a gentleman…oh, Raoul, how nice to see you, and Ella, you've found Bob Lee Wellburn, you clever thing! Oh, boys, don't glare—I shall get up and move over there, so you both can sit down next to Ella. I declare, dearie, you've captured the hearts of all of our menfolk in just two days. They'll be fighting duels over you before the week is out and I shan't be surprised if all the boys should pine for you once you've gone back to Tara, you sweet thing."

This last part was pure flattery and politeness, for Maybelle Picard and Fanny Wellburn would have rather seen their sons dead and buried than have them fighting duels over Scarlett O'Hara's daughter. But Ella knew there was some truth in the sentiment, if not the expression of it. She thought, as she talked with Bob Lee, on one side, and Raoul on the other, that it was so easy to make a man fall in love with you. She had lowered her eyes and smiled at them and done practically nothing else, and still their tongues wagged out of their heads whenever she came into a room. Men were very stupid, weren't they? And why, she wondered—why hadn't her charms worked on Beau? What was the difference between him and these two tall lads?

Ella knew there must be a difference, for these Atlanta boys were nothing like the proud, cultured Beau. Oh, they were proud, too, in their own way, but they were red and hearty, while Beau was pale and gentle. They gossiped and laughed uproariously and had a fine, inbred hatred of all things Yankee, and they did things with gusto and aplomb. Beau _was_ different—Ella supposed it was because he had lived up North, and had gone to school in Virginia. She supposed Virginia must have a strange influence on men, because Uncle Ashley had been there, and Uncle Ashley was the same as Beau: cool, remote, drowsy and listless, reading books by the cartful.

Raoul and Bob Lee had never gone to school—their families did not have the money for it. They both worked in trade, which would have been a fate worse than death before the war, but not it was a badge of honor, a reminder to all that their families had not taken the loyalty oath to the north, and so had proudly borne the punishment of poverty for their pains. Ella wrinkled her brow as she thought of it. The Wellburns and the Merriwethers were poor—very poor, worse off than Aunt Pitty, even. It seemed a little silly to be so poor when they might have just taken the oath. If they had taken it they could have nice things, and Ella, who had never had hardly anything of her own, liked very much to have nice things.

The folks had fallen into the habit of giving her little presents, because it was so nice to see her white face become pink and happy, and to hear her exclaim delightedly over her trinkets and treasures, and because they felt a little sorry for the poor, fatherless child, who was, for all intents and purposes, motherless, too. For surely a mother like Scarlett couldn't have counted for very much?

The Meades brought her posies from their garden, and the Merriwethers a nice set of ribbons for her hair. Raoul Picard lent her a book on theology which she tossed aside—it did not excite her, but Bob Lee Wellburn gave her a box of cheap bonbons in paper lace that made Ella wonder if she ought to kiss him? She decided not to—for she knew in her witchy, womanly heart, that he was likely to bring her more in order to procure that kiss. And also because—because—because her lips belonged to Beau!

Beau—she was so absorbed in the goings-on during the day that she didn't think of him much. But at night, with the house dark and the curtains pulled so that only a sliver of a moon shone through the gap and onto her white face—she remembered Beau all over again at night. She thought of Savannah, that shady, mossy city by the sea, and she thought how it must suit him, the shadows playing over his pale handsome face. Why, it probably suited him far more than the County, where everything was hardy and ruddy and rough. Savannah was a silky name for a silky, moonlit city. She would like to see Savannah. Perhaps she would live in Savannah someday with Beau.

After a brief stint in town, this sounded more favorable to Ella than going back to Tara. She did not know how she could ever go back to Tara after the hustle and bustle of the city these past days. After this, it would seem so dull. Oh, she loved it—she loved Tara—but—but Ella realized that she did not feel _free_ there. She did not feel at home Tara because it wasn't her home. She just lived there—"If you can call that living," Ella murmured. She saw now that her life in Tara was very dull and not the sort of life a young girl like herself could be living. In the shadow of a begrudging aunt and jealous cousins!

No Atlanta girl had ever had to live that way. Cammie Wellburn and Eloise Picard were gay, giddy, bonneted creatures who laughed and sang and had dozens of beaus on a string. Ella had thought them soft in the head before she realized that _she_ was the strange one—that her joyless existence was not the way it was for other girls. Ella was aware of the fact that Cammie and Elouise did not like her as well as their brothers did—they were always whispering behind fans and giggling when they thought she wasn't looking. She supposed they thought her strange because she did not seem to have the same happy, carefree ways as they did. But then, Cammie and Eloise had never had to live at Tara!

Ella would have loved Tara if she had been able to sing and dance and laugh and play coquette there as she did in the house on Peachtree street. It was only now that she had done these things that Ella realized what she had been missing.

"And if I had never come to town I never would have known what I was missing," she said to herself, and it was very sad to her.

But oh! If her plan worked she wouldn't go back to Tara. Not Tara—Twelve Oaks. If her plan worked, Beau would come to her and they could be married here in Atlanta, or perhaps Uncle Rhett would even take her to Savannah, and Ella and Beau would be married there, in that slow, seaward-facing city. If her plan worked—it must work! For what would she do otherwise. Her plan would work—Ella hugged herself to think that this time next week she might be Mrs. Beauregard Wilkes. Oh, Beau, darling Beau…

Ella turned her feverish face into the pillow and thought of him. "Soon," she promised herself, and meant it. "Soon."

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In the quiet moments, when Ella was not thinking of Beau or Rhett or flirting with the Atlanta boys, or gently manipulating Miss Pitty into doing things she wanted, Ella thought about her mother. She had not known her father so she very rarely thought of him—but she had known her mother, at least, well enough to know she was a mystery, and to yearn for more information about her. Ella thought about her mother very much during her time in the house on Peachtree street.

Her mother had lived in this house. Her mother had walked every pace of these floors as a young girl—very nearly Ella's age. What thoughts had gone through her mind? What had she hoped for, wished, dreamed? What had been her loves and hates?

No one alluded to Scarlett in Ella's presence, and Ella found it very sad. No one talked of Ella's mother at Tara, either, except for sometimes, and in such a way that it betrayed a thinly-veiled undercurrent of resentment. But Ella knew that Suellen had never liked her sister. Something about how Ella's father had been Suellen's beau, before he had married her mother. People said that Suellen had never recovered from the defection of her beau to her sister.

"But that wasn't Mother's fault," thought Ella loyally. "She couldn't help it if Father preferred her to old Aunt Sue."

Here in Atlanta, she had hoped that people might talk of her mother—might compare her face and hands and charming ways to Scarlett's—might tell over stories of Scarlett as belle, Scarlett as a young, beloved and cousin, Scarlett as the great lady that she must have been. But no one spoke of her.

"Aunt Pitty, won't you tell me something about my mother?" asked Ella wistfully one quiet evening, as they were sitting together in the parlor, Ella holding the yarn for Miss Pittypat's crochet. Away down the block there was a party in the old red-stone house where Ella's mother had once lived. The whole of Peachtree street had been invited, but as was their usual custom, the Old Guard declined with cold politeness. The Barts had lived in Atlanta for sixteen years, but the stench of carpet-baggers had not dissipated from them; their low origins and their scurrilous behavior after the war had never been forgotten.

The music that floated down the street and came in through the open windows was low and sweet and romantic and thrilling, and Ella wished that these old Southern conventions could be flouted, and the steely resolve of the Old Guard broken, at least just this once. She wanted desperately to go to a party—even if it was a carpet-bagger party—she had never been to a party before, and her face had fallen when she was told that it was beyond the pale to even consider going to a Yankee fete. But perhaps the whole evening would not be a wash—if Ella could only get Aunt Pitty to tell her some sweet, charming stories of the girl her mother had been.

Aunt Pitty seemed not to have heard Ella's question, so engrossed was she in her yarnwork, so Ella repeated it.

"What was my mother like?" she wondered. "Won't you tell me something of her? I have—so few memories of her. I didn't spend much time with her and—and—and she died so young, you know."

Aunt Pitty had stopped working her needle and was looking at Ella in some consternation. Pitty's mind was a child's mind. She could not tell the girl the truth and yet—yet—she did not think she could lie. She was at an utter loss as how to respond without telling one, for Pitty must lie. She certainly could not tell the truth. She wrung her hands and avoided the question again, by crying out:

"Oh, dear—oh dear. Oh, Uncle Peter!"

"What is the matter?" Ella saw that she was about to go into one of her swoons and went and got the ever-present 'swoon bottle' that stood in the sideboard. If Aunt Pitty went into a faint she'd never find out anything of what she wanted to know.

"Auntee, _please_," she begged, and Pitty only fluttered her hands and called for Peter again.

Peter came into the room glowering, fiercely protective of his 'Young' Miss as he had always been, fixing Ella with a furious glare.

"What you been doin' to upset Miss Pitty?" he questioned furiously, as though Ella had been beating the old woman, or sticking her with sharp things. "Her heart ain' strong and she gots mo' trouble dan she needs widout you stirrin' de pot. What you been doin' to make her go into sech a state?"

"I only asked her to tell me about my mother," said Ella piteously. "No one ever speaks of her—and—and I didn't expect to upset her so. Uncle Peter, _why_ should that upset her? What is so terrible that Aunt Pitty can't tell me about it? If there is something awful—you should tell me! I should know about it! What is it that is so terrible about my mother?"

Peter ceased his ministrations at the sight of her woebegone face. He had a kind heart and did not want to upset the child. The keen mind in his black head was not so morally rigid as Miss Pittypat's; he had no trouble telling a white lie, if it would settle things, and keep his miss from getting 'in a state.' Ella watched him curiously; even Pitty sat up straighter and trembled to see what he would say.

Peter's mouth worked and his eyes were pensive as he thought of the best thing to say.

"Chile," he said finally, "'Tain't nuthin' worse dan bringin' up de past when it is ober and done wid. Dere somethings better datdey _stay_ buried once dey _is _buried. You gots to let the daid stay daid—doan go callin' their names and wakin' dems up. Let dem sleeps in peace."

Ella's eyes were very wet. "Do you think my mother misses me?" she sobbed, tasting salt on her lips. Aunt Pitty, who was never able to see a person weep without weeping herself, burst into fresh tears. "Do you think that she's happy up in heaven?"

"I hope she happy—wherever it is dat she be," said Peter, putting, he thought, a very perfunctory cap on things, and ending satisfactorily what he considered to be a dangerous conversation.


	8. Chapter 8

India Wilkes was very glad to be back in Atlanta. Her visit to Macon had not been pleasant, not had it been a success. Her cousin Willie Burr had been lately made a widower, and that whole sect of the family had spent the entire time of her visit making insinuations that India should jump at him. India knew that Willie was none too fond of her, but still, he did not seem completely immune to the idea of taking her as his wife. He had a large family—seven children—and he badly needed someone to manage them.

But India was even less fond of Willie than he was of her, and she had _no_ great hopes of being worked to death as the first Mrs. Burr had been. She grew tired of the insinuations after a few days; after a week of them, she had had to take her leave or she feared she would scream at them all and never stop.

"Ungrateful girl," said Old Aunt Mabel Burr, by way of parting. She thought her son Willie a fine catch for such an ugly, dried-up old maid as India Wilkes, and was quite peeved that India had not jumped at the chance to claim him. India simply shrugged. She knew she was not ungrateful—and she knew that could no longer, not by any stretch, be called a girl.

India had been forty-one on her last birthday, and she looked every one of her forty-one years. Her hair, which had always been pale, had silvered over the decades of war and poverty and Reconstruction. The first lines on her face had appeared after Gettysburg, and had only deepened. She was an old maid, and the worst type of old maid, for she had no rollicking nieces and nephews to spoil and take care of. Ashley and Beau had migrated north, and Honey had never come back from Mississippi once the coarse Westerner she had married had decided to leave the gentle, settled east for more uncharted territories. India sniffed and shrugged again. Some folks called Honey 'lucky' for catching a husband at the venerable age of twenty-four, when men were scarcer than boot leather, and many people said that it could have been India who won the Mississippian, if only she had exuded a bit of effort. It was true that India was no great beauty, but Honey had always been plain, too. And India, at least, had a lick or two of sense.

But India had not wanted the Mississippian and she did not begrudge Honey for having won him. She even went so far as to wonder how Honey could possibly lower herself by marrying such a man. But then, Honey had never had a beau like Stuart Tarleton.

When India thought of Stuart a gentle look came over her face that almost made it, if not pretty, pleasant. For a while India had been afforded the dignity of being one who would have been Stu's wife had he lived—had a bullet not felled him, and all of her hopes, at Gettysburg. But it had been almost twenty years since Gettysburg, and everyone had forgotten him—except for India. She remembered. And she would never, never forget him.

She would never be quite able to forget, too, that she would have surely been his wife if it had not been for Scarlett O'Hara. India remembered the day that Scarlett took him away, as though it were yesterday, and not twenty-two years in the very distant past.

They had gone to a rally together, India happy and loved, hanging on his arm, and across the crowd she had seen Scarlett, fifteen years old to India's nineteen, and more fascinating than a girl who wasn't all that pretty had a right to be, narrow her eyes calculatingly. India held tight to Stuart, but her grip and her gentle good manners had been no match for a pair of flashing green tip-tilted eyes, a pair of cunning dimples, a white, fine bosom, and tiny, lace-mittened hands. She lost him at the very moment that his eyes met Scarlett's green ones. Of course, Scarlett had lost interest and Stuart had come back to her. India welcomed him back as graciously as if he had been the Prodigal Son.

But he was never really hers again, after that. Oh, he did and said all of the right things, and he was kind and solicitous and apologetic for his folly, but there would always be a part of him that belonged to her—to Scarlett—who had not even wanted him except to try her claws out on him. As a consequence, India had hated Scarlett O'Hara bitterly ever since.

And everyone knew it. Which was why no one had believed her when she had told them things about Scarlett—about the way she really was. India knew all about her—but when she tried to tell everyone else, they called it jealousy and sour grapes. Of course, some people believed her, but those who had mattered had not, and had cast her out.

Melanie! India jerked her bonnet strings thinking of foolish Melanie. For Melanie must have been a fool if she had never seen what Scarlett was really all about. But Melanie died loving Scarlett, and forgiving India, who (India thought) had done nothing that she need be forgiven _for_.

Even Aunt Pitty had not really wanted to believe India. And Ashley, her own dear brother—Ashley had looked at her so guiltily and seeing the treacherous glint in her eyes, had never, ever quite been able to face her again. He had gone away up North and taken Beau and things had never been right between them since. India blamed Scarlett for this, too—she never thought of blaming Ashley—but she also blamed herself. She had spoken, she had told the truth, and it had made her unpopular. From that time forward, she kept her mouth shut.

So many feelings had stayed bottled up inside of her for years, because India never again dared to let them out. She would not risk having what had happened happen a second time. She knew that Raoul Picard frequently visited the Girl of the Period saloon—and even the rooms upstairs—that Hugh Elsing bet on horses and was many thousands of dollars in debt. But she never said anything to Maybelle, and if the Elsings wondered where Hugh's salary went, India did help them find it out. She had learnt that it was better, if one knew the truth about things, to never speak of it. She would not risk it. She kept it all inside.

When India climbed the stairs to the house on Peachtree street, grateful to be home, she was shocked to find a face from the past in the parlor, sitting as if she belonged there, a white face, with slanting eyes, and tiny, even features. Scarlett! It was Scarlett O'Hara, to the life!

No—not Scarlett. The hair was reddish, and the eyes were not so witchily green. Her daughter. But oh—so close! Scarlett O'Hara's daughter here—when India had thought she was done with Scarlett O'Hara forever, here was a reminder!

India was a reasonable woman, and she knew that her immense hatred of the girl was unreasonable, but she could not help herself. She could not tell herself to be kind—she could not make herself pity the girl, who had practically no family or education or breeding behind her. India hated her. She resented every second of that the girl spent in this house—she begrudged her every mouthful of food—she hated her viciously—viciously!

But still, she kept quiet. The feelings stayed bottled inside, though, at times they threatened to boil over—sometimes so imminently that India had to flee from her presence to her own room, where she pounded her fists against her mattress and seethed.

If the girl had been like Scarlett, India might have hated her less. Strangely—she resented that Scarlett's child should be so charming, so pretty, so likeable. It made India feel cold and hateful, because she could not like her, or be charmed by her. And everyone felt it. How difficult, for India, to be faced with such youth when the dew was off her blossom! That was what they thought. India could see it in their eyes.

And, India thought, it would have been easier if the girl did not seem to like _her_, if she, like her mother, had behaved like a cat, made snide, remarks about her old-maidishness, had been smug and sarcastic. But Scarlett's daughter called her 'dear Cousin India,' and looked up to her, and brought her tea and cookies and a shawl to lay over her shoulders when a draught came in through the open window.

India wanted to scream. She would have almost preferred to be back in Macon with hateful Willie and Aunt Mabel's endless insinuations, to this! Scarlett O'Hara's daughter! Under her own roof! Smiling, and simpering, and asking such interested questions in her sweet voice!

Questions—the child was full of questions. India laughed inwardly in a cruel, satisfied way. She could tell her a few things—yes, she could! But she could not, must not. It would be brutal and spiteful, and everyone would accuse her of being malicious and vindictive. And toward such a sweet child! India would not do that. She would not let it happen to her again. But the girl would not stop asking questions! India found the temptation to give truthful, cutting answers was too hard to resist, and so she had to excuse herself, and go up to bed early.

"Goodnight, dear Cousin India," said Ella, squeezing her arm fondly and dropping a kiss on India's withered cheek. India wanted to scream—but she did not. She bit her lip until she tasted blood but she found it did not hurt. Why should it? She had been holding her tongue for years and years, and was used to it by now.

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India ground her teeth together as Scarlett's daughter played on the piano. She was fine at playing, and had a light, pleasing soprano, but India hated it, because it was Scarlett's daughter's voice. She worked her embroidery savagely, wishing that she were not alone in the house with the girl.

Ella had found an old sheaf of music in the piano and she sang lustily, enjoying herself. The song was 'Lorena,' and Ella knew it must have been one of her mother's favorites. Wasn't she, after all, called Ella Lorena? Her voice was high and sweet and clear as she sang:

_The years creep slowly by, Lorena,  
Snow is on the grass again._

India writhed, stabbing the needle through the cloth and thinking about how strange life was, to lead her down a path that would end sitting in a room with the daughter of Scarlett O'Hara, not five feet away. If India stood slightly and reached out, she could slap her pink-and-white face. How she would love to do that! Her fingers itched to do it.

_  
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,  
The frost gleams where the flowers have been…_

She wished Aunt Pitty and Uncle Peter would come back. It was so crushing, so oppressive, to be alone with the girl. Deep in the core of her being, India felt a wildness that scared her. She was afraid of what she would do if left alone with the girl for too long. Oh, of course she would never harm her—but she had such hateful, vicious thoughts toward her that India was frightened by her mind's own tumult. If only Pitty would come! But no—she was visiting at the Merriwether's, and Dolly could talk the hind legs off a mule, Pitty reciprocating in a like manner. It would be ages before they talked themselves out.

_A hundred months have passed, Lorena,  
Since last I held thy hand in mine…_

India was surprised to find tears rising to her eyes. She dropped her head to hide them and blinked furiously, ashamed of herself. What if Scarlett's daughter was to see her crying? No—no—never. Never. It was only this song, this detestable song. But once she had loved it. Once she had danced to it and Stuart Tarleton had held her close—not too close—but close. And India had thrilled because he was hers again, in body if not in soul. But then he had been taken away. It was the last time they had danced together.

_The story of that past, Lorena,  
Alas! I care not to repeat._

India found that she, too, did not want to repeat the past. That was why she kept her mouth shut against what she knew. That was why it was better this way. She remembered those first days after Ashley's party, when she had found him—and Scarlett— oh, India had thought of it so many times over the years that she wondered sometimes if it _weren't_ really just a figment of her imagination, as so many had politely suggested—or even said, outright, scornfully.

No! She had seen them—in each other's arms—shamelessly, for they were both married, and to other people. Of course, Scarlett had been married to that hateful Butler man, but married all the same. And as for Ashley—and Melanie—India choked with indignation.

Ella broke off playing and came over to her, kneeling before her and looking up into her face with some concern.

"Are you well, dear Cousin India? I shall bring you some water."

The girl disappeared and India trembled from head to foot. In a moment she was back, with a cut-glass decanter, which she used to fill one of the tall glasses that she handed to India. India drank, feeling her face flush crimson, detesting herself from accepting any kindness from Scarlett O'Hara's daughter.

Ella had been affected by the slow sweet song she had just been playing, and the story of Lorena's lost love; she hummed a few bars to herself as India drank. Her eyes flashed suddenly green as she thought of Beau. Oh, her love was a secret, just as Lorena's had been!

But it didn't need to remain a secret; she wanted suddenly very much to tell someone. It would make it more real, somehow. But who to tell? She laughed, for the answer was before her.

"Cousin India," she said. "I have a secret for you."

India hated herself for being interested in what it could possibly be. "Um?" she said coldly, feigning indifference.

Ella's face fell momentarily, but once determined to do a thing, she always saw it through to the end.

"It's about Beau. Your nephew, Beau, Cousin India."

India lifted her head at his name. She hated that she wanted so badly to know what this child would tell her. She hated that this child should speak of him so familiarly, when she, India, Beau's aunt, had not seen him in many years. He must be a man right now, instead of the little boy she had once held and cuddled. Ashley had been so stingy with him after—after…

"You see, Miss India—oh, Cousin India, we're going to be married! Isn't that perfectly lovely? And I do hope that one day I should be able to call you _Aunt_ India!"

Aunt India, indeed! Quick as a flash India had jumped to her feet and cast her embroidery to the floor. Scarlett O'Hara's daughter—and her own Beau! An O'Hara and a Wilkes, at last! Ha! Ha! She would never let it happen. She put her thin, clawlike hands about Ella's shoulders and began to shake her—to shake her violently, viciously, not even caring that Aunt Pitty and Uncle Peter could be heard out in the yard, and in a moment would come in, and see firsthand her wild fury! No! She did not care!

"Never! Never!" cried India, and Ella's teeth chattered together as the wild assault went on.

"India!" cried Miss Pitty, coming in the room and beginning to swoon, and Uncle Peter shouted, "Laws, Missy, you's killin' that chile!" but India was too far gone into a mad rage to halt her indecent behavior. Scarlett O'Hara's daughter—and Ashley's son? It would never be—she would never let it be!

"You are a whore—just like your mother," she cried sneeringly, as Ella recoiled and her face shaped into a mask of shock. She had never had such a bald, ugly word hurled in her face like this—had never even heard the word spoken aloud before. She must get away. India wanted to shake the life from her. But even before her own well-being, Ella put the memory of her mother.

"My mother is dead," she said through lips that were numb.

"Your mother!" cried India, pushing her away. Her face was green and her freckles stood out against the unearthly pallor. The tightly bound rage that had always been locked up inside her for so long was straining to get out. "Your mother!"

"India—no!" pleaded Miss Pittypat feverishly, forgetting, in the face of such imminent danger, to swoon. Uncle Peter stood stoically beside her, knowing that there was nothing he could do. Whatever was going to happen would happen, and he was powerless to stop it.

India Wilkes had been silent for ten years, but she would no be no longer! The words tumbled forth in a garbled fashion, but there was no mistaking what she said. For the rest of her life, India Wilkes would be ashamed of what she had done; but that was after this terrible now. Now—now—she only said, coldly and meaningfully,

"What a fool! Your mother isn't dead. It's a lie. She's no more dead than I am. Your mother ran away to New Orleans five years ago because she didn't want you, and the day that Scarlett O'Hara left town was the best day Atlanta has ever known. Dead! I only wish she _were_ dead—the world would be a better place without her in it! There, now! What do you think of that?"

They all expected the girl to faint. Her eyes went so large, and dark, that Pitty screamed, "Catch her, Uncle Peter," and Peter, as he was bidden, stepped forth to catch her as she fell. But Ella did not fall. She put out one hand to hold on to the mantle and faced India, cool and calm-voiced, but trembling all over. She knew that this—thing—must be true. She could not deny the horrible truth in India's words. She must face it—face it. This is what she had wanted to know—she had wanted to know about her mother—and now she must hear it, no matter how awful it was.

"Perhaps you should tell me everything," she said, and her own voice sounded very far away.

And India Wilkes did a terrible thing, a thing that would haunt her until her dying day. On her deathbed, she would be sorry for it. But she was not sorry now.

India told her everything.


	9. Chapter 9

Rhett Butler was glad to be back from Savannah. He had no liking for that gentle city; he liked it even less with Ashley Wilkes by his side. No—not Ashley—his son. But it was no use drawing a distinction—the two were so alike that they might have been cast from the same mould.

No, Rhett did not like Savannah—with or without Beau Wilkes. He found it stuffy and full of all the things that made the south so repugnant to him—slow drawls and polite mannerisms and good reputations and hateful traditions. The only worse place he could think of was Charleston—and since his mother had died two years ago, Rhett had not gone back to that city of his birth. And he never intended to. It had been the one good thing to come out of a bad situation.

He was glad to be back in his office at the bank. Work had such a tendency to pile up while one was away, and he found his desk drifted in mounds of paper. With a sigh, he settled back to sort through the documents; after a few moments he stopped, and put his feet on the tallest stack, leaning back to smoke a cigar while he thought about things.

Rhett was a large shareholder of the bank, and he had, at first, only wanted the desk there to give a mere pretense that he was engaged in honest work, had only wanted to keep up that pretense to remove the cloud of speculation that hung around him. He had done it for Bonnie's sake. But now Bonnie was gone and he was still here, and work, he thought, was as good a way as any to pass the time, the long years he had left, until he might be allowed to close his eyes and rest eternally. And perhaps be with Bonnie again. He had never had any traditional leanings toward religion, or any belief in heaven or hell, but as he grew older, he found himself fervently hoping that there was something after this toil of life was over. He wanted rest after so many years of 'toting the weary load.' And it hurt him to think that such a vibrant spirit as Bonnie's could have been forever snuffed out. No, there must be something to come after. There must be.

The officials at the bank had been surprised to find that Rhett was an asset to them; he had a good head for figures, an uncanny knack for picking investments, and he was so imposing that those who owed only had to speak with him once before they paid up, and those who wanted loans but could not get them did not pester around the place, hoping for a change of heart. Rhett Butler couldn't have a change of heart, they said to each other behind his back, because he had no heart.

Rhett's lips curled into a grim smile around the cigar that he held in his teeth. No, he had no heart. First it had been broken, and then it had been ripped away from him. Once broken, he had not wanted it anymore; indeed, he had not tried to mend it but instead crushed it under his boot-heel until it could never be repaired. Rhett had no use for broken things. When his boots gave, he threw them away; when his watch stopped ticking he chucked it into the bin. He got something new and shiny and soulless to replace these old, damaged things. But he had never found anything to replace his heart and so he lived without one.

He finished his cigar and threw it to the floor, crushing it out with his boot heel. The management was very prissy about the upkeep of their floors, but never dared reproach Rhett for his habits. Rhett grinned again, but it was without the merest hint of real mirth. He began to flip through the pages in front of him, absently. He had wanted to work, and so he might as well work. He was good at working.

No one had been more surprised about that than Rhett himself.

There was a commotion in the lobby, and Rhett vaguely turned his ears toward it, his eyes still on the long column of numbers.

"Get your hands off me!" came a voice, high-pitched and wavering with indignation. "I will see him, I tell you, I don't care if he's busy. I know he's in there. I've been waiting out front for two whole days, and I saw him come in. Get—_off_. I will see him! I will!"

The door to Rhett's office burst open and he stood, lazily, as the clerk said, "Someone to see you Mr. Butler," before hastily ducking away. And Ella, pink-cheeked and wild-eyed, stood before him, trembling and seething with a hot, passionate fury.

"How could you!" she wanted to know, and Rhett sat, just as lazily as he had stood, and lit another cigar, putting his feet back in place atop the stack of papers. He was surprised to see the girl, and he did not like being surprised. His hand with the match shook a little—that was how much she'd caught him off guard. Of course he had known she would be hopping mad when her whey-faced suitor up and left. But he had never expected for her to put two and two together and he had certainly never thought that she had enough gumption to come to tell him off.

"Why, Ella Lorena," he said, a little admiringly once he got his wits together again. He did admire her—she was pretty when she was angry, sparkling like a new, fiery diamond. Yes, she was Scarlett's daughter. "And I've underestimated you—underestimated your intelligence. I like it when people exceed my expectations of them, Ella—and you have exceeded mine."

She said nothing, but stepped forward and picked up a heavy glass paperweight from atop a sheaf of papers. Then she hurled it at his head.

Rhett dodged it, cursing, his cigar falling to the floor. He sprang forward and caught her shoulders, holding her away from him for she was now beating on his chest, beating her fists with all her might, and shouting.

"I hate you! I hate you! Oh, you're vile—I can't believe what you've done."

"Calm down," said Rhett, feeling a sudden contempt for her, which swiftly replaced any admiration he had been feeling. She _was_ Scarlett's daughter—just as stupid, just as stupidly stubborn. "I knew you'd take the defection of Beau Wilkes difficultly, Ella, but that is no excuse for damaging bank property—or for trying to commit murder."

Ella's face twisted and Rhett was disgusted to see tears on her cheeks. But then she began to rage at him and beat him again.

"Beau Wilkes! I don't give a hop for Beau Wilkes. Let him go to Savannah and die there—and you with him. I'm here to ask you why you lied to me—and I want an answer—why you lied to me about—about—about my mother!"

Suddenly Rhett sat down in a chair by the door, all his energy and contempt and disgust drained away. He only felt very tired, and he covered his eyes with his hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt suddenly impotent, tired, ashamed of himself. Angry with himself. He should have known better than to tell the child that her mother was dead. He should have known that she would find out someday, that this page was written in their history even before it happened, as soon as he had told her those words: "Your mother is dead."

"God damn it," he said softly, and then rising, he made one swift motion that swept all the papers from his desk onto the floor. "God damn it!"

She was sobbing now, as papers settled softly all around them.

"Is it true?" she wondered. Oh, she knew it was true! She had known India was not lying—and Miss Pitty's and Uncle Peter's silence had only confirmed things. But she wanted to hear him say it—she would make him say it.

"Is my mother—alive?"

Rhett covered his eyes again.

"I don't know," he said finally.

"You—don't—know?"

He shook his head, and Ella was suddenly impressed with the thought that Rhett Butler looked old—he looked like an old man. His hair was graying at the temples and his face sagged as he looked at her.

"You don't _know_? What does that _mean_?" she launched forward again and took up her howling. Rhett wrapped his hand over her mouth to silence her screams and she bit him so that he snatched his hand away and held it. He pushed her into a chair and he was surprised to find that he was laughing, holding his wound and laughing, laughing uproariously. "Tell me—stop that, and tell me—tell me now!"

"Truce—truce, you little demon," he said, holding up his hands, and something like respect flashed in his eyes when he looked at her. "I'll tell you what I know Ella, on one condition: you must sit and hear me through. No howling, no dervish-like behavior, and no more biting. Will you be quiet and let me tell you?" He was suddenly sober again. "Do you think you can behave yourself long enough for me to get the story out?"

She had stilled herself, and her eyes were dry, even though her chest heaved now and then from a suppressed sob. Her eyes were very large as she fixed them on him, and the place where Rhett's heart had once been gave a strange throb as he looked at her, for she was the exact image of her mother.

"Yes," she said, "I'll behave. And I won't bite you again. I wouldn't have done it at all except you were smothering me. I'll behave."

"Good. Then I shall tell you everything."

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When Rhett told Scarlett O'Hara that he did not give a damn, he meant it—at least he thought he did. But she had not believed him, and that was her downfall. He did not believe it, either, deep in his heart of hearts, and that was his.

But he had been determined to try and not give a damn, even if he could not manage it in actuality. He wanted to punish her, to make her suffer as she had made him suffer. He wanted her to yearn and pine and long and ache—for him, not for Ashley. She had been willing to do it for Ashley; Rhett had a perverse desire to see if she would do it for him as well.

Did she want him because she couldn't have him? Or because she loved him? Rhett knew it must be the former. Scarlett wasn't capable of love. She was a shallow vessel, and love was too deep for her to carry.

Everyone buzzed with the news that Rhett had left his wife. It spread through the city and down to the country like Sherman's wildfire. The matrons said they knew all along that this was coming, and vowed that perhaps Rhett Butler wasn't such a bad sort after all. Out of the ashes of his marriage rose the phoenix of his reputation. Scarlett had burned her bridges and burned them well beyond any hope of repair. Public sentiment ran high against her—a disgraced woman—who had no one to blame but her disgrace but herself.

The men placed odds down at the saloon as to whether Rhett would go to New York and get a divorce. He could do it, and it was about fifty-fifty that he would or wouldn't. Those that bet he wouldn't said that they wouldn't blame him if he did. Everyone hated Scarlett, and with Melanie's protecting shield gone, they were not afraid to show it. Her name was whispered like an anathema or, worse yet, not mentioned at all.

Rhett knew he could do it, get a divorce, and he had never been able to reason out why he hadn't, in those first weeks—months—years. Perhaps—perhaps he was hoping..? No. No, he never hoped against hope. It was not his style to be optimistic. Most likely he was taunting her by keeping things whole—tenuous, but still whole, between them.

For the first time in his life, Rhett Butler learned that he was weak—weak—for he could not resist her. She sought him out, begging him, beseeching him with her eyes, her mouth, her hands. She came to his rooms at the Atlanta hotel and she offered herself to him, and Rhett had been weak, he had taken her.

"Oh, how wonderful everything will be," she said, after, with a happy sigh. "I knew you'd come back to me, Rhett."

"But I haven't come back," said Rhett, with a new resolve.

"What? What does this mean, then?"

"It means, my dear, that I have used you." He went out, hating himself, and hating her, because he was not strong enough to resist her.

That night, Scarlett tried to take her own life—for the first time.

"Do you remember, Ella?" Rhett asked her, now, his black eyes on her hazel ones.

Ella said 'no' unwillingly, but a memory was flirting about on the edges of her mind. Mother—on the tall, black, walnut bed, blood at her wrists, with the maids and the doctor fluttering over her.

'Superficial' wounds, the doctor had called them; most likely not a serious attempt, but worrisome all the same. Rhett had packed her off to Tara, for the first of many visits, and he had gone abroad himself.

He had gone to England, and Paris, as he said he would. But they bored him, and so he came home, where the dance began again, Scarlett dogged his heels as tirelessly as a bloodhound on a scent, and Rhett avoided her, running from her until he could not run anymore. He allowed him self to be caught by her, every time. It was funny, how his resolve and will to resist her had once been so strong. Now it wasn't. Perhaps it was because he was old and broken-down—perhaps it was because of the fact that he had vowed not to touch her. The things we vow against are usually the most irresistible.

It was cruel, but he wanted to be cruel—as cruel as she had been to him by throwing his love back in his face.

When he went away she screamed and cried and raked her nails across his face and her own and held a shard of a crystal champagne flute against her throat and vowed that she would do it, she would do it, if he so much as walked out that door. If he did walk out, she hurt herself, and Rhett, shocked by her desperation, even as much as he was harrowed by her passion, came back and sat by her, and held her hand, and her green eyes glowed with renewed diligence. She would have him—she would have him!

She was a creature without shame, without dignity, and Rhett detested and disgusted her almost as much as he wanted her. Her reputation was gone, and so her frequent attempts on her life and his own could not hurt her much. People had, for many years, expected the worst of Scarlett.

For a while, the men at the saloon had also taken bets as to whether Scarlett would finally hook Ashley Wilkes. Rhett began to hope she would. That way, she would not hunt him, and he could not be caught in the trap of loving her, despite himself, of loving her when he wanted to hate her. But Ashley surprised everyone by going north, and the oddsmakers had to admit defeat in that arena.

Scarlett would not admit defeat. Letters came to him, one every day, pleading, begging, cajoling, promising. He had to get away—he must get away before he did anything foolish.

He had gone to Charleston, and had tried to make peace with his people. It was not as hard as he had expected. His people welcomed him with polite cordiality, if not with open arms.

He had thought that a shadow of the old times must still linger somewhere. Perhaps they did. But he had not been able to find them. Charleston was not the same as it had been before the war. Just has he was not the same man he had been before Scarlett. Rhett separated things into 'Before Scarlett' and 'After Scarlett.' He was not the same as he had been Before, After.

He stayed in Charleston, among his people, until the memory of Bonnie began to fade. One day Rhett had a clear picture of her in her mind—the next he found he could hardly remember her. It scared him, that someone so vibrant and vivid could have, suddenly, changed into a ghost. He did not want to stay in Charleston. It held no charms for him. He wanted to go home to Atlanta, where Bonnie had walked.

But he could not stay in Atlanta if Scarlett were there. He showed up on the doorstep of the house they had shared, a large white envelope in his hands.

"Look what I've got for us, pet," he said, drunkenly, for he was drunk—he had had to be drunk to do what he had done. "I've got a present for you—and me. A divorce Mrs. Butler—or should I say, Miss O'Hara. You are Miss O'Hara, again now. Free to be Mrs. Wilkes, if you like."

She slammed the door in his face, and that night, she tried again to take her life. If Wade had not found her, she almost surely would have died.

This time, Rhett did not come to her. He made himself stay away. Scarlett came to him, thin and frail and bird-like, with bandages on her arms. She was no longer frenzied and passionate. She was dry-eyed and blank-faced, as though all of the emotion had been emptied from her—except for hope. She put it to him very plainly and simply. It had been four years since Rhett had walked out of the house on Peachtree street—four endless years of hunting and chasing and screaming and begging, begging on her knees. She was tired; Rhett could see that. He had worn her down. What a wonder that he should not feel happier about it! This is what he had wanted, but faced with it, he felt only a sense of sorrow that things had turned out for them both, this way.

"I love you."

"That means very little to me, Scarlett, for I know your kind of loving—and it isn't what I want."

"I'm not happy without you." She said it very planly.

"Then you must learn to be unhappy. Scarlett, why don't you go away and have a fresh start somewhere else? Go away—go away—and for God's sake, leave me in peace!"

She narrowed her eyes at the break in his voice, and Rhett could see her mind working swiftly, thinking how she could persuade him, how she use it against him, how she could make him bend.

"You'll come back," she said. "You always come back to me."

But Rhett summoned the last vestiges of his resolve and did not go to her again. Nearly another year passed, and he did not see her once. At the end of a long string of lonely months she came to him once more, one last time, and she was so incredibly thin and white that he wondered how it was she could find the strength to sit so erectly in the chair before him.

"I'll go away," she said, and her voice had a strange dreamlike quality. "You want me to go, and I'll go. But you must do one thing for me—two things."

He was curious at this change in her, and he asked, "What has made you decide this way, Scarlett?"

She looked at him, and her eyes were like a beaten animal's. "I-I don't have any hope anymore, Rhett."

Now that they were in the same position, now that this common, hopeless thread connected them, and made them the same to one another, Rhett found that he could be calm and simple, too.

"What is it that you want from me?"

"Money," she said, in the same dreamy way. "Not a lot—just enough so that I can go somewhere and set myself up."

"Will one-hundred thousand dollars do?"

She looked at him sharply. It was more than she had expected, more than she wanted, but she was too tired to negotiate, and besides, if she could not have happiness, perhaps it would do to have a lot of money. She would be comfortable this way; she nodded as though it all mattered very little to her—for it didn't.

"What is the other thing?"

"I want you—" she began, "I want you to take care of Ella and Wade for me. Oh, will you, Rhett? Make sure they have books and shoes and—and all the things that children need. I've left Wade's property and the store in trust for him and Ella, and Uncle Henry is holding my accounts for Beau because—because of something I said to Melly, once. Wade will be going to school in Virginia soon and Ella is going to stay at Tara. Suellen has agreed to have her stay there. They won't need a lot of money but I'd like to know that they were being looked after."

"How interesting that you should care about that now. You never did before."

She looked at him again, beaten.

"I didn't come to fight, just to tell you that I'll be leaving. You won't have to bother with me again."

"I'm sorry." He felt almost tender at the sight of her, and his heart wasn't into the fight, either. "Where will you go?" he asked, curious. Somehow—he could not imagine Atlanta without Scarlett in it.

"Oh—I think New Orleans. We were so happy there. Weren't we?" as though she could not believe she had ever been happy.

"Yes—we were happy there."

"Well, goodbye, Rhett."

"Goodbye, Scarlett. I hope life is good to you."

She smiled, an impossibly sad smile, and said, "I hope the same for you." He saw her too the door, holding her thin arm, and bent and kissed her cheek before she went. As he straightened, he saw her face dimple into its old smile, the smile of Scarlett O'Hara, the belle of five counties.

"How funny!" she said, "You win, you know, Rhett. You've beaten me. How funny! I always thought I would wear you down in the end. But you've won."

Yes—he had won. And it was funny, that he should not feel more glad.

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She wrote to him once, to let him know that she was settled in New Orleans. A short note—she was living in the French Quarter, "On Peach Street—how strange, the way things work out!" Rhett had not had a letter from her since, but he handed this one to Ella, so that she could see the frail, silvery writing firsthand.

Ella's head whirled. It was all—too much. She folded the letter into her pocket and she stood, wobbly, holding onto the desk for support.

Rhett wrinkled his brow, he had expected weeping, flutterings, anything but this cold, stony silence.

"Where are you going?"

Ella turned to face him. This man—he had made her mother go away—from her. She hated him. She hated him. She would always, always hate him for making her mother go away.

"Where are you going?" asked Rhett again.

"I'm going to Hell," Ella said, her voice clear and startlingly cold. "I expect I'll see you there, too, one of these days."

Without another word she left the office, with her head held high, left him gaping behind her. She left the bank, and did not look back. She had only her reticule with her money and her gold watch in it. All of her pretty dresses were at Aunt Pittypat's but she would not go back there. No—she would never go back there. She walked the long, dusty way to the depot and she bought a one-way ticket to New Orleans.

She was going to find her mother—if it took her the rest of her life, she would do it. She would find her, and bring her home, and they could be together.

"As God as my witness, I will find you," Ella vowed, speaking to the sky as though her mother could hear her. Her heart was beating in her ears and her breath came in short gasps. She felt lightheaded, and a little giddy with what lay before her.

"I will find you," she told the sky, she told the clouds, she told the air—she told her mother, wherever she was, willing her words across the void of time, and space and distance. "As God as my witness…I _will_ find you, Mother, and I will bring you home."

END PART ONE


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks for all the reviews I have gotten; I appreciate them all. This is my first GWTW fic and I am so surprised and delighted to see it is so nicely received. Now, stay tuned for the start of Part Two, and let me know what you think of it. **

Kinnicut crossed his legs and watched the flat, faintly hilly landscape of Alabama turn into the jungly, low-slung moss of the bayou. Four more stops to New Orleans. With one brown finger he spun his silver spur, listening to the pleasant jingle of the metal as it went round and round.

He was lately come from Atlanta. The last drive had ended a month ago, but he had decided to stay on in Dodge City; and from there take the train over to North Georgia. There was a pleasant yaller-haired girl there that Kin liked very much to see whenever he could. She didn't care if he were hot and dusty and sunburned from the trail—he supposed she had seen worse, in her trade, and he also knew that he was what could be considered handsome by the weaker sex, though he wasn't the sort to dwell on outward appearances. He had a hatred of 'dandies' and prided himself on wearing only dungarees, with a denim shirt, and over that an ancient, buckskin jacket, which he had owned for so many years that it had shaped to the contours of his body, moulding to the muscles that played in his broad shoulders and arms when he shifted his weight and crossed and uncrossed his legs. His body was hard, lean, and lithe, as a cowhand's should be, and he was not used to folding it up to sit decourously in a train compartment. He rode everywhere he could, and when he had to walk anywhere, which was not often, he moved with a casual grace that suggested and easy canter, being reined in with difficulty from a gallop.

A ten-gallon shaded his tanned, wind-reddened face, from which shone eyes that were so brilliantly, startlingly blue that people often stopped to look twice at them. They were a peculiar contrast with his brown hair, so dark it was almost black, conspicuous in his deeply tan face, and Kin did not like to make himself conspicuous. He had learned that it was better not to be in his trade, for if someone could remember you six-hundred miles down the trail, from a chance meeting a month and a half before, they more often than not could also remember any slight you had paid them, whether it be real or imagined. Which often led to trouble. No—Kin did not want to be noticed, and he pulled the brim of his hat low and narrowed his eyes, and avoided looking too directly at anyone. '

The ten-gallon hat was a nice hat—it was made of tan felted, and had narrow braid around the rim. Inside was the name of STETSON CO, Philadelphia. Kin was equal parts embarrassed and proud of his hat. It was finer than most other hats, a very fine hat, and he had won it in a poker game. Its owner had been loath to part with it, which made Kin more pleased over having won it. But he had a keen hatred, shared by most cowpokes, of being thought to be a dandy, so he was a little ashamed that he should feel so proud of his Stetson. But all the same, there wasn't a cowboy in Texas with a nicer hat.

His boots, however, he was fiercely proud of, and did not care who knew it. They were a fine, dark cowhide, polished till they gleamed, with tracings of red and silver leather up the toe and sides in a wild, exotic design. They seemed out of place with Kin's traditional cowboy garb, and more than once he had had to endure teasing about their keen craftsmanship. Whenever he was loath to do some banal task, which even the greenest hand would have resented doing, people said it was because he didn't want to get the boots dirty. Kin did not mind being twitted. Two years ago he had captured a Kiowa Indian just outside of Wichita, and given over to the town jail to be hung, for scalping a white woman, but not before relieving him of his fine boots, which fitted Kin perfectly. The Indian, in turn, had stolen them from some poor Mexican _vaquero_. Kin was determined that the cyclical life of the boots should end with him—if someone wanted to take them off of him, they'd have to kill him, and Kin would not allow himself to be killed.

The boots were his only nod to vanity; he twirled the rowel of his spur again, and listened to the pretty little clicks as the train roared over the Alabama landscape toward New Orleans. Kin always wore his spurs, whether he was riding or not—he had gotten into the habit of riding long and riding often, and had discovered that it was a time-waster to get into the habit of taking off his spurs between rides. He would only have to strap them on again, which took a good minute and a half—which seemed a short time, but to a cowboy, it was a length of time that could mean the difference between escaping with hide intact, or being scalped or shot. He kept them on, then, for convenience—and because he liked the companionable jingle of them as he walked.

Across from him, Buck Wilder slept with his own ten-gallon—which, Kin noted, was no where near as fine as his own—pulled down low over his face so that only his long, yellow moustache showed beneath it. It was a straggly, sorry, drooping moustache, but Buck wore it, he said, for the sole purpose of keeping the whores at bay.

"Without it I'd be so pretty that they'd never leave me alone," he said loudly and with gusto, which was how Buck said everything, from the greatest pronouncement on the philosophy of man, to the slightest comment about the weather. "I've a fine bone structure, you know. If I didn't wear a moustache, the whores would never let me be, and I might be tempted to marry one of them."

Even with the moustache, Buck seemed to have plenty of whores fighting over him, and they had gotten into some hot water back in Atlanta, when a pretty, black-haired girl had wanted to pack up and follow him West. Her man hadn't liked that idea, and Buck was loathe to have to shoot him. If they had been on the other side of the Mississippi, or up the trail somewhere, folks would not have minded so much if Buck had shot a man like that, but here, in the East, they took things awful seriously, and Buck did not relish the idea of getting strung up for the sake of a whore, even if she was black-haired and pretty.

Kin had not fared as well at the gambling table as he had hoped, and had been glad to cut his losses and run. Atlanta was an unlucky town for him—always had been. He would not have even gone, except that Buck, who had never been past Mobile, had a hankering to see what the East was like, and Kin had a hankering to see the aforementioned yaller-haired woman. But neither experiences had proved satisfying, so the two cowboys and old friends made their way to New Orleans, which they hoped would be more stimulating.

New Orleans was a lucky city for Kin, which he found ironic, and the thought of it twisted his mouth in a wry, mirthless grin. He had been born in New Orleans, twenty-five years ago, and at times he thought that the dark bayou water must flow through his veins instead of blood, for, try as he might, he could never quite get away from New Orleans. He might be a thousand miles up the trail, in Kansas or Nebraska, and all at once the sound of the cattle lowing would remind him of the alligators bellowing in the swamps, and would he have a clear, sudden memory of the moss-slung trees. Once, on a drive, he had ridden over the Brazos in a clear morning sunrise, to find the white, filmy mist spread over the valley in a way that reminded him of morning on the levees, and which pulled so hard at the corners of his heart that he found himself short of breath.

This disconcerted him, for Kin was none too fond of New Orleans. New Orleans had not been kind to him, and he only went back from time to time to remind himself of why he hated it so much. The slow, muddled traditions annoyed him, and the tedious dramas of the people filled him to the brim with a weariness that settled in his bones. People had been living the same way in New Orleans for a dozen generations; in a dozen more, Kin knew that things would be exactly the same as they were in the present time.

He had become a cowboy because it was the easiest course for a man who had abandoned his education at the earliest possible point in time; who had no family, no breeding, and a sense of adventure stirring in his depths. And because it was exactly the opposite life to New Orleans upbringing he had hated.

Kin lived in Texas, now—at least, for the few months of the year that he was not out driving cattle to the rail stops in Abilene and Dodge, or farther West, to the mountains of Colorado, or North, to the Dakotas, or even Montana. In a month he would start out for Miles City, Montana, with a herd, on a momentous drive, for it was further north than he had ever been, 'cross the Powder and the Platte and the Yellowstone rivers, through country that was not the least bit settled, still rugged and wild and untamed, and teeming with Indians, and a certain exhilaration sprang up in him whenever he thought about it. Yes, he would go to New Orleans, and stay a week or two—by the end of it, his lip would be curled in a permanent sneer of resentment, and he would be itching to get away. The drive to Montana would be doubly sweet, because it would get the flat taste of New Orleans out of his mouth, and because it would be something new, and fresh, and exciting. He would appreciate it more—the wildness, the untamed quality, after a slow, molasses-slow, stint in New Orleans. He would have a better appreciation for it, after New Orleans.

And, he hoped, after New Orleans, he would have a few more dollars in his pocket. Kin and Buck had sold their old sorrels after the last drive, and headed east on the railroad with the proceeds of the sale and their wages from the last drive burning holes in their pockets; in the two weeks since, Kin had managed to lose almost all of it at the card tables to the dignified Atlantan gentlemen whom he detested, not only because their easy, bland faces gave nothing away. He had had to borrow from Buck to make fare to Mobile, and if he had not stumbled upon a rich old lady while changing trains to New Orleans, he would not be on the train now. The woman had set her bag down at the ticket window; it had hardly been anything at all to lean casually down and take a few bills from her reticule.

Kin was not above petty thievery to supplement his income. He did not censure himself for it, either; he was sure to steal only from the fat, the rich, and the insipid—the sort of people who had looked down on him all of his life. He never took more than he needed, and so his conscience never hurt him. These people could do without—he couldn't.

"Buck," he said, with a voice that was always slightly hoarse, and which betrayed no hint of the Creole accent he so strongly resisted acquiring during his years in New Orleans. It was not Southern at all, in any way, and nor had Kin ever picked up any of the Texas twang during his years in that place. When he spoke, he sounded like he might have come from anywhere at all—or nowhere in particular.

"Hey, Buck," he said again, louder, but the other cowboy only grunted and pulled his ten-gallon down lower over his eyes.

"Ain' takin' you nowhere," he murmured sleepily. "Black-haired whore."

Kin grinned and clapped him on the back and turned to take his leave of their compartment. He didn't like being cooped up in such small places. Once, during his first drive, a horse had fallen on him, breaking his hip, and Kin, who had been young and green and unable to walk or even sit up, was left in Ogallala for three months, in a plain, stifling room in a boarding house, without even a window that he might crack for fresh air. He had taken a buffalo gun that was propped next to the bed and blown a hole in the wall, through which came enough of a glimpse of blue sky, and enough of a whisper of fresh air that he had been, if not contented, less stifled. The owner of the boarding house had not appreciated the gesture, but Kin thought it improved things greatly.

He wanted to go out to the smoking platform at the back of the train, not because he smoked like most of the other cow-hands, but so he could breathe deeply, to the bottom of his lungs, of the moist Alabaman air. He wanted his fill of it before they reached New Orleans—in New Orleans, the atmosphere was so wet and dank and heavy that he felt as though he couldn't get one full breath the entire time he was in town.

He made his way down the corridor, hardly noticing the jolt and rock of the train, and would have reached his destination, had not another door opened, and a tall, bald man stepped out into right in front of him, a black pipe in his mouth. Kin cursed himself and flattened against the wall; it was a fellow known as Dublin Gray, who owned the largest cattle operation in Texas. Back in April, Kin had signed to go with Dub on a drive to Abilene, even gone so far as to sign the contract, but at the last moment had reneged. He would rather go to Montana instead. He had seen Abilene, so many times that it held no charms at all for him. Buck had wanted to go, for he had a whore there, and a pretty one, but Kin was able to convince him to go along with him and sample the many delights of Montana.

"'Sides, the whores in Miles City might not be as tired of you as the ones in Abilene are."

Buck bristled.

"The whores in Abilene ain't tired of me," he said indignantly. "They positive pine for me, and you know it, you varmint. But you're right—even if they ain't tired of me, I'm pretty tired of them. I guess I'll go along with you to Montany."

It was just a mere pretension that Buck made toward being independent; he and Kin went on every drive together, and Kin knew that Buck would not go anywhere that without Kin by his side. They were as different in appearance and temperament than any two men could be, but closer than brothers. If Kin had wanted to go on a cattle drive to the moon, Buck would have dug in his heels and protested, only to relent at the last moment, as Kin would have known all along he would.

Dub started to walk toward him, and Kin, who did not relish having to explain his defection, ducked into the nearest compartment, and just in the nick of time. He closed the door softly and leaned back in his seat, and took in the scene that was before him.

A young girl was sitting across from him, alone with her reticule, and she was sleeping. She was a pretty thing, from what he could tell of her—her face was turned to the window and the sun streaming in through the blinds illuminated a profile that was fine as porcelain. Her hair was auburn and twisted up so that only a few wayward curls escaped. Kin smiled; he was not such a devoted connoisseur of the female sex as Buck, but he did appreciate a pretty little creature whenever one should happen to cross his path.

Out in the corridor, he heard the distinctive sound of Dublin Gray clearing his through. "Ha-HEM, ha-HEM," he went and Kin wrinkled his lip in annoyance. Dub had been shot through the throat with an Indian arrow some years before, and by some miracle of God it hadn't killed him, but it did make him wheeze when he breathed, and clear his through viciously to rid it of the mucous that accumulated there from a wound that had not stopped oozing in the twelve years since he had gotten it. It was another reason Kin was loathe to go along with Dub to Abilene—the old man gave him the creeps with his wheezing and his 'Ha-HEMs.' And he was afraid of Indians, too, and rightly so after his last encounter with them—but he had a reputation for being gun-shy, and Kin didn't want to run the risk of standing too close to a chapparal bush on some moon-shadow night when Dub shot at it, mistaking it for a lurking Indian.

Kin studied the girl across from him, more closely this time. A rich, pampered thing—he could see that. Probably coming from her mother's house in Atlanta, to sample the puny pleasures that New Orleans had to offer a good girl of fine-breeding. Her dress was silk and new—and Kin wrinkled his lip further. It was strange that she did not travel with a chaperon, but perhaps she was older than she looked, which was about sixteen or so.

His lip wrinkled so that it was almost creased as he thought what should happen if she were to open her eyes and find a strange man in her compartment. There would be tears, flutterings, and swoonings, and he was tempted to reach across and slap her to wake her up, just so it would all play out, and he could have the pleasure of slapping her again to shut her up. He had no great liking for soft, silly things like this girl—he positively loathed residents of the Gentle South, who had been bred to be ornamental and not much else.

How would this girl behave if she should find herself on a cattle drive, and to have to work—work—work until her bones ached and her hands bled? How would she like burrowing into a river bank to hide from Indians in the Territory, or riding through the rain or sleet, or beating sun, or even having to take her victuals from the chow wagon, waiting in line with everyone else for her turn? She couldn't hack it, and Kin swelled with loathing of her. He had thought the war would rid the world of these rich, spoiled, pampered brats, so that only the strong survived, and he was always displeased to see how wrong his prediction had been.

He sniffed openly, but the girl did not wake up or even flutter her pink eyelids. Emboldened, Kin propped his feet up on the seat opposite, and reached for her reticule.

He went through it casually, for it was apparent now that the girl was so soundly sleeping that nothing, short of a hurricane, would wake her. Kin was vastly disappointed to find very little in the bag. There was no cash, only a folded bit of paper and a few odds and ends, and in the very bottom of the reticule, and—a gold watch. Ah—this was more like it!

He hefted it in his hands and decided that it was a nice watch—real gold, not brass, with a silver chain and dangling seals. Kin held it in his hand for a moment, and then, without a lick of remorse, pocketed it. The girl shifted and muttered in her sleep, and for one brief moment Kin felt a pang of conscience. He took the watch out, too look at it again.

But then his eyes went from it to the girl's silk dress, her white, lily-white hands, her rose-bedecked straw bonnet—her pretty face, which had never known need or want or hardship or pain. How silly he was to feel sorry for a girl who would sneer at him if she went by him on the street—to draw her skirts away from him unless he shower dust over them as he passed. He had spent the first seventeen years of his life being sneered at by folks just like this girl, having things pulled from his grasping hands by these people. They had taken his birthright, food from his mouth, all chances of opportunity. They had tried to take his pride and make him weak, but they had not succeeded. He was strong, now, and stronger than them; and so he took from them. It was only fair.

In the corridor Dublin Gray's "Ha-HEMs" faded as he walked away, and in a moment, Kin heard the door to the smoking platform open and close. Kin stood, stretching his long legs. He pocketed the watch again and opened the compartment door.

"Much obliged," he said, with specious cordiality, and made a mocking bow to her sleeping form. The girl did not stir. Kin laughed softly to himself and closed the door, and made his way back to his own place, spurs jingling pleasingly as he went.


	11. Chapter 11

Ella awoke, hearing the sound of chimes or bells or something like that. They faded away as she pulled herself into consciousness, and she thought that she must have imagined the sound. She had been having a dream.

In her dream she was running—running in the dark, through a strange, dimly lit street, bordered on both sides by rough buildings, with the stars bright overhead, and the moon looming low on the horizon, so low and large and giving off such a bright, unreal light. She had been running, but to or from what she did not know—running so that her legs pumped and her heart beat in her throat and her lungs nearly burst. The pervasive theme of the dream had been _help_—she must find help, or get help. Why she had needed to find help in her dream she did not know, but it had seemed so real, so immediate, the sense of danger and harm, that sense of desperation and fear that she had felt were slow in leaving her as she woke, and pulled herself up, straightening her dress.

Her reticule was on the floor—it must have fallen there, rocked by the jolting of the train as it lurched along the flat bayou-land toward New Orleans. She pulled it to her and settled it back by her side.

There was a strange scent in her compartment, of horses and tobacco and whisky, smells she remembered from Tara, and they made her so suddenly homesick that she wanted to cry. Why had she come on this fool's journey? Why had she set out to find a mother who most likely didn't even want her? For her mother could not have left her if she had wanted her. A mother didn't _leave_ her children.

Ella sighed, and reached into her basque to pull out the wad of bills she had hidden against her breast. She hadn't wanted to leave it in her reticule—suppose someone came along and picked her pocket? She had had a hundred dollars in Atlanta, less the five in gold she had given to Aunt Pitty. The ticket to New Orleans had cost forty dollars, and Ella had about sixty left. She counted it, just to make sure, and a surge of desperation came over her. Sixty dollars—it seemed so little, when, only a few days ago, a hundred dollars had been a sum almost too great for contemplation. She must make this small sum stretch—she must pay for a place to stay, and food to eat, during the time it took for her to find her mother. And then there was the question of train fare back to Atlanta. If she found her mother, she needn't worry about that. Her mother had money and could pay. Hadn't Rhett given her a great deal of money—thousands and thousands of dollars? But if she didn't find her mother…well, Ella thought, she would not think of that now. She'd think of it later—tomorrow. There was no use thinking about things that weren't even likely to happen. She knew where her mother was, and she would find her. And she could always sell Gerald's watch if she needed. It was safe in her reticule where she had tucked it when she left Tara.

"Next stop—New Orleans," came the bellow of the conductor as he walked the halls. Ella straightened herself and looked out of the window as the first of the city began to whiz by.

Why, look at all these old buildings! And the gray moss hanging from the trees. And that old cemetery, with the funny, strange little mausoleums in it. And all the wide, flat, swampy expanses inbetween. These were nothing like the yellow-watered swamps of north Georgia, but denser, deeper, and somehow more primeval.

Ella was so interested in everything that almost before she knew it the train had come to a halting stop, and a long whistle sounded as she gathered her reticule and made her way through the corridor. She dismounted into a steamy heat that oppressed her. She had never before felt such a damp, moist, smothering heat.

All around her was a crowd of people—ladies in light muslins and poplins, with veils wound around their hats to protect their faces from the bright, over-bearing sun. The men wore seersuckers in blue and pink and swung polished, black oak, gold-topped walking sticks jauntily. Even the Negros were outfitted fashionably, Ella thought, the bushy black locks of the ladies arranged in cascades of curls that tumbled down over fat, black shoulders.

Ahead of her she saw two tall men in wide-brimmed hats and she studied them curiously. They were rugged in a way that the rest of the folks weren't, and Ella knew, that, for the first time, she had seen a cowboy. Oh, how dashing a place New Orleans was! The air smelled of sugar and coffee and things baking and mingled scents of flower water, and far underneath that, was the smell of earth and the slow, still, algae-water of the swamp that carried on the breeze.

The crowd began to press around her, and people called to each other in Cajun accents that sounded strange and foreign to her ears, accents so slow and think she felt she could cut them with a knife. People surged all around her and Ella had to stick out her elbows and fight her way through to the front of the station.

Black hackney carriages were lined up, drivers waiting beside the horses expectantly, hoping for a fare. Ella fumbled in her bag for a quarter and approached the friendliest looking Negro driver, biting her lip. His eyes rolled and his red lips turned up in the simple friendliness of his race.

"Can—can…I wonder if you would be so kind as to drive me some where. Can you?" she asked him, holding out her quarter in her gloved hand.

"Well, missy," the strange, melodious, twangy accent that she had heard before came from his lips, "That all depend where it is you wants ter go."

Again, Ella cursed her impetuosity. The next time she formed a plan, oh! She would think it all through before she set forth on it. She had no idea where to go, where she should ask to go. She did not even know the name of a hotel in town and she did not think to ask the darky driver to provide the name of one. She thought back—her mind went swiftly over all its memories to try and find some flash of information. Her mother had often talked of her honeymoon to New Orleans. Her mother had brought her a coral bracelet as a souvenir. She had talked of it proudly, for so few Atlantans had had the means to go to that place after the war, and it was a badge of distinction. If Ella could only remember what it was her mother had said…

_And I got the nicest convent-made underwear, all hand-made…silk stockings…heels three inches high, with paste buckles…_

_Gumboes and shrimp Creole and doves in wine…oysters and wines and liquers and champagne…_

_And we stayed at...we stayed at the finest hotel…it was called…it was called…_

Good heavens, what had it been called?

_It was called the…_

"The Bourbon Orleans!" said Ella with a flourish, having found what she was looking for. She thanked her long memory and her mother's frequent bragging, for without both she would not have known what to do in this minute. She handed the driver her quarter, and clambored aboard.

She did not know it was the most fashionable hotel in the French quarter, and that two nights' stay would exhaust completely her finances. She only knew that she had found the answer, for now, and that tomorrow or the day after that she would find her mother. New Orleans was not so big a place, and after all, Ella thought, fingering the letter, she knew just what street on which her mother lived. Peach Street. She would go to the hotel and have a nice nap, and then get some dinner, and tomorrow morning, bright and early, she would find her mother.

_Suppose you don't find her?_ asked a nagging voice in the back of her head, but Ella pushed it away into a corner and sat back to watch the sights and hear the sounds of the city as they drove. "I will find her," she told herself. "And if don't—if I don't—well, I won't think about that now. I'll think about it tomorrow—I can stand it then."

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Kin stood against the counter as Buck paid for their rooms, his eyes moving restlessly over the throng of finely dressed people that milled about. He was uncomfortable, as he always was in the midst of such finery. He hadn't wanted to stay here—he would have been far happier in one of the little boarding houses in the Bywater, or the Fabourg Treme. He did not like to stay in the French Quarter. It had too many memories for him, and besides, he had spent too much of his life being miserable here.

But Buck would not be persuaded.

"If we're going to do New Orleans, we're going to do it right," he said. "When I'm in town I stay at the Bourbon. Closer to the pleasures of the nightlife."

"Closer to the whorehouses, you mean," said Kin scathingly.

"Well, they _are_ one of the pleasures of the nightlife," said Buck complacently. "And its closer to the gambling houses, as well. Say, Kin, I'll loan you ten dollars for a game, but you better make it back and them some, you hear? I'm getting tired of supporting you. You're like to clean me out in a few days, if you have a run of luck like the one you had in 'Lanta, and I got to keep a little money. I want to go see that French girl a few times before hitting the trail. You remember, that big girl, with the red hair?"

Buck finished the transaction, and signed the hotel register as 'Aloyisius Carlton Eddystone Wilder' with a flourish. He was proud of his long name and drew out the letters so that they covered about half the page, which made the clerk scowl angrily. Kin picked up the pen and signed, 'R.X. Kinnicut,' wasting very little space, which restored the clerk to his previous bad humor. The clerk did not like cowboys and he had a positive contempt for Buck's yellow moustache that was plain to see from the way he had bristled up the moment it came into view.

"Well, let's go up and get settled," said Buck, picking up his rucksack and slinging it over the shoulder. "I'm longing for a bath. And I suppose I'll have to have one, for the girls in New Orleans are real fastidious 'bout such things as bathing, and likely wouldn't have a man with grit and grime on him—even such a pretty one as me."

Kin slung his own rucksack and followed him, but stopped as his eye fell on a tall, pale girl in the foyer. She was wearing a pink dress and her bonnet was perched slightly askew on her head as she counted and recounted a roll of bills in her hands. She looked up and bit her lip, and counted the bills again.

His heart twisted in sympathy, for he had so often counted his money in the same, furious, desperate way, when faced with an unexpected expense—counting the bills over and over, hoping the whole time that perhaps two of the notes were stuck together, that there had been a miscount, there was actually more money there than there had been a moment before. With a sudden shock, he realized that it was the girl from the train.

Her pink silk dress was not as nice as he had thought when he had seen it before—it was crumpled, and the hem was grimy, and the bustle a little flattened. She counted the money again and looked down at it in such utter bewilderment that his heart squeezed hard in his chest. Her eyes ventured up and scanned the room absently, and she started as she noticed his eyes upon her. They locked—the hazel eyes and the bright, bright blue—for a moment, before Buck called out,

"Hey-o! You comin' or what?"

With some difficulty, Kin turned away, and followed his friend, but looked over his shoulder one last time at the girl. She was counting her money again, rifling the bills with her lower lip caught between her teeth. He reached into his pocket and slipped his hand around the watch he had taken. It felt cold and sharp and heavy, and he wrapped his fingers about it so tightly that the cool metal cut into his skin.


	12. Chapter 12

Who would have thought there could be so many houses on Peach Street?

Peachtree street, Atlanta, was a long, broad, expanding throughfare; but all in all there couldn't be more than ten or twenty houses on it, all large brick or clapboard affairs, with wide, sloping lawns. Peach street, New Orleans, was a tiny road bi-secting the French Quarter, scarcely more than a half a mile in length, but town-houses and other residences were packed so tightly together that, Ella supposed, there might be a dozen or more just on this block.

She had started at the far end and throughout the morning and the early afternoon, had made her way about a third of the way back toward the hotel. It was hot, slow-going work. At each place, she knocked on the door using the heavy brass knocker that gleamed from each. When it opened, she peeped, in agonies of embarrassment, into the expectant face that looked down at her. Sometimes her embarrassment was so great that she wanted to run away; only the thought that she must find her mother kept her going.

At each placed she asked: _Have you seen my mother?_ She used every incarnation of her mother's name she could think of, 'Mrs. Charles Hamilton,' 'Mrs. Frank Kennedy,' 'Mrs. Rhett Butler,' even asking flat-out for Katie Scarlett O'Hara when all other inquiries failed. The New Orleans folks were friendlier than Atlanta folk, and they felt real bad for this poor little thing, but they had no information to give her. Sometimes they would question her for a minute or to, getting more information, their faces thoughtful. Ella's heart leap in her chest as she described her mother's black hair, her tip-tilting eyes—"Like mine, but greener,"—and sometime she was so sure that whoever she was talking to would suddenly say,

"Oh, you mean Mrs. _Rhett _Butler. Why, she's in the next room, let me just go get her."

But each inquiry only ended with a shake of the head and an "I'm so sorry, sugar, but I hain't neither seen or heard of a person like that." And the door would close, the person peering apologetically out from behind the crack, and Ella would descend the steps wearier than when she had climbed it, hot and dusty, throat parched, and hope a little less deep in her heart.

Suppose she didn't find her? Oh—she _wouldn't_ think of that now!

She met with so little success that she began to think perhaps it wasn't Peach Street after all that she was walking along. The streets in New Orleans were haphazard, she stopped often to check the signs. No, this was Peach Street.

Sometimes she pulled the letter from her reticule, her mother's letter to Rhett, and scrutinized it. Yes—Scarlett had plainly written that she lived on Peach Street, New Orleans. In Atlanta, one Peachtree Street had multiplied into Peachtree Drive and Peachtree Avenue, but there was only one Peach in all New Orleans, and this was it. But—but the letter had been four years ago. Anything could have happened in four years. Ella's mother could have moved somewhere else—to another, winding lane, or even another town or she could have—she could have—died.

She wouldn't think of that! Not now—and not that, never _that_.

The sun was so high overhead that perspiration streamed down Ella's back and into the waistband of her petticoat. The bottom of her skirts were thick with dust and spattered mud. Her boots, which had been too small when she set off from Tara, now pinched and squeezed her feet into an agony of blisters. There was not even a place she could sit and take refuge from the sun and the dust and her aching feet. The yards of each house were small and fenced with tall iron rails. In the middle of the street was a park, but it was so teeming with children and maids and negroes of all descriptions, that she was a little afraid of going in and getting lost in it.

She sat down on the bottom step of a tall, many-roofed house, topped with wrought-iron scrolls and lacework. Just for a moment. She could not go a step further without screaming in pain or frustration. She hoped the inhabitants would not begrudge her a minute or two of relief on their great stone steps. My, what a grand house this was! She had never seen anything like it in Atlanta or Tara. As she was admiring the strained-glass windows and the broad, shady verandah, the door opened and a woman's bright red head peaked out curiously at her.

"You want a glass of lemonade, honey?"

Lemonade! Ella would have preferred one humble glass of lemonade just then to all the nectar and ambrosia of the gods. She felt that her throat was clogged with all the dust she and the passing citizens and carriages had kicked up that day. She turned grateful, and upon seeing whom it was who had spoken to her, froze in shock.

The woman who was peeping out was half-clothed, in a negligee and—and not much else. Her frowsy, tumbling curls, which were held up with black velvet ribbon, were a shade of red that Ella had never seen before in her life and she realized with a shock that this woman's hair was dyed.

The sounds of laughter and girls' whinnying and good-natured shrieking came from within the house, and along with it was the rumble and bass of male voices, cajoling, teasing, and thundering.

"God's nightgown!" Ella thought, the phrase leaping unbidden to her mind as she took it all in. This was—this must be—a—a sporting house! That was the only explanation for the din and clamor and the half-clothed, dyed hair woman who had two large circles of rouge painted on her wide cheeks. She, Ella Lorena Kennedy, of Tara, Clayton County and Atlanta, had chosen to take her leave of rest on the porch of—of—of! She sprang to her feet, face flaming, lemonade and dusty throat forgotten.

"No—no thank you," she managed hastily. "I—I don't want anything. I just stopped to rest a moment—but I'll be getting along now. Thank you very kindly."

The red-haired woman's fat, naked shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, and her eyes gleamed mirthfully. "Suit yourself, sugar," she said and closed the door, and Ella fairly leapt down the steps and into the street, cheeks so hot and red she felt her face might burst into flame.

What sort of place was New Orleans, when respectable people and—and bad women—lived side by side on the same wide, shadeless street? And in the nicest house on the street, too! Ella thought of the poor Atlanta folk—the good Merriwethers and Meades and Elsing living in ramshackle clapboards. How strange God was, to let them starve in elegant gentility, while the bad women had iron-scrollwork and fancy negligees and stained glass windows!

She forced her feet to move on, putting on in front of the other mechanically, moving on to the next house. Her stomach rumbled as she climbed the steps. From some of the restaurants came the smell of fried dough and chicory coffee, and Ella had not eaten since breakfast, and only a meager breakfast, at that. She wanted badly something to eat, but could not spare the money. She must save enough money for another night at the hotel—suppose she did not find her mother today? All the same, she was so hungry that her hand shook a little as she lifted the heavy brass knocked at the door of the next house on the street.

She knew even before knocking that her mother would not be there and her heart sank. She knew at this house that the folks would shake their heads and say no, they rightly hadn't heard of a lady named Hamilton, Kennedy, Butler, or even O'Hara. Suppose it was like that at every house? Suppose she never found her mother?

But then Ella straightened her shoulders and squared them. A woman couldn't vanish into thin air. Her mother had to be somewhere, and there was no reason to think that she would not be right here, in any one of these houses. She must be—she was! And Ella would find her.

And if she didn't? No—no! She mustn't think that now. She'd start screaming if she did. She'd think of it later, when she could stand it.

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"Who was it?" Buck wondered, as the red-haired whore closed the door again, a look of bemusement on her face. "A traveling saleman, perhaps? Some of them Gideon folks, selling Bibles?"

"Some little pink-cheeked thing," said the whore, leading Buck up the flight of stairs. "Wearing a dress to match. Come on, now, honey."

"Pink cheeked?" Kin could hear Buck say, as the whore led him away, "That sounds nice to me. Whyn't you ask her in? I like me a pink cheeked girl as good as the next man, 'specially when it ain't been painted on. You should have asked her in. Where's your manners, sweetheart?"

The whore laughed, and the sound of their voices was muffled by the closing of a heavy door, and Kin lifted on eyebrow, even as he pulled the corner of one mouth down. He went to the window and scanned out through the pushed-aside curtain, and stopped in some shock as he saw a now-familiar figure moving away. In a smooth movement he opened the door and bounded down the steps without first contemplating doing it, which surprised him. He hardly ever did anything without first thinking it over at great length, weighing and balancing the costs and benefits of action. And here he was in the street, as though his body had made him do it instead of his mind, following at a distance of ten paces, the pretty little girl from the train.

He hung back against a bower of climbing roses as he watched her walk up to the next house and pull the bell, and he wondered if she were selling something. But her hands were empty. Maybe she was one of them proselytizing folks—but she had no Bible. The door opened, and screened by the roses, Kin heard snippets of conversation.

"I'm sorry to intrude—wondering if you'd seen—looking for someone."

What a curious thing for a girl to be doing! It explained some things, though. Her nice but worn dress, her worries about money. Had she been abandoned by someone—a man? Had he gotten her into a bad way and then dumped her? He was surprised to find his heart suddenly rear up and surge with anger on her behalf. Kin never got angry, just as he never behaved impetuously. He found that both emotions interfered with a clear hand and head, which counted as great assets along the trail. He prided himself on never letting his heart run away with him, not for the prettiest whore, not for the basest atrocities committed against a ravaged settler deep in the Indian Territory.

He had seen women and children scalped, their white corpses slashed and pitiful—he had seen horses whipped and beaten—he had seen weak men beaten in a barroom brawl by a pack of bullies, and still he always kept his head. And here he was now, spitting like a cat at the thought that someone might have wronged this little girl. How strange!

How strange, too, for hadn't he wronged her—almost as bad as a person could wrong anybody? He had stolen from her, and he could steal feel the weight of the watch he had taken, heavy as sin in his pocket. He suddenly felt ashamed—and Kin never felt ashamed. He had vowed that he was done with shame, years before. But he couldn't be really done with it, for here it was again, as fresh and new as a bruise against his chest, like the time when he'd been kicked by a horse and had the wind knocked from him, and two ribs broken besides.

The girl had evidently not found who she was looking for at the house, for she made her way back down the steps and over the walk with her face arranged in lines of weariness and desperation, her steps slow, her shoulders rounded over in defeat. Kin stepped out from behind the arbor, and into her path, but she stepped around him, looking at him, but not seeing him, as she moved on.

He cursed himself for taking her watch in the first place. What was he supposed to do now? Walk right up and give it back to her? He knew he couldn't keep it. His conscience—damn his conscience—wouldn't let him. But he didn't relish the idea of getting haled into the city jail for a bit of thieving. Jail—in New Orleans! Why, the whole dern city was a jail to him!

He would just follow her for a bit, and perhaps she'd set her back down, and in a crowd he might be able to slip the watch back into it and disappear. He had done well at the gambling table last night, making back Buck's ten and a heap more dollars besides. Maybe he would even slip some folded bills in with the watch, for she looked as though she could use a hot meal and clean clothes. Yes—he would give her back her watch and a little bit of money. Then this crushing weight might be lifted from his shoulders, and his nagging conscience would leave him alone. And—and he wanted to make sure that nothing happened to her. New Orleans was a pretty, gentle city, but it had its rough edges, and she looked so young and so alone…

Kin was surprised that he felt rather tender toward her. Little brave thing! Look how she set her chin at a high angle and banished the traces of despair away from her face. He was as surprised at the tenderness as he had been at the pangs of conscience. Tenderness was also something Kin had supposed he was done with—he had not felt tenderness toward another soul in a long time—if ever.

She limped on, to the next house, and Kin trailed her, at a reasonable distance. She rang another bell and he hid behind a looming magnolia—watching her—waiting for her—and following her as she moved on once again.


	13. Chapter 13

Ella kept up her search until supper-time. She felt it would be rude to intrude on the inhabitants of Peach Street at that hour, and besides, her own stomach rumbled so ominously that she could not keep up her search. Black spots swam before her eyes when she moved, and at every step her blistered heels screamed with pain. Finally, beaten, she began the walk back to Bourbon street and the hotel, stopping in a little café to buy a cup of coffee. Perhaps it would settle her gnawing stomach. It was dear—fifty cents a cup—and the muffins and cakes were another fifty, but Ella could not resist buying one. She ate it ravenously, and then was sorry she had not eaten slower to make it last for she was still hungry and could not afford another.

She sipped her coffee slowly. The café was dark in the looming dusk, and little candles glowed on every, red-checked table cloth. She forgot her manners and leaned her elbows on the table, setting her head in her hands. A few tears threatened to slip from her eyes and she checked them, remembering who she was.

The café was deserted, except for the small black-mustached Creole behind the counter, and two men in tall hats sitting at a table a short distance away. One of them, with a yellow moustache that rivaled the Creole's was gesticulating wildly with his hands and talking in a booming voice. The other did not seem to be paying attention to his companion but was—was looking at Ella. Looking right at her, in fact.

Ella straightened and wiped her tears away. She would not cry before strangers, and cowhands besides! She was Ella Lorena Kennedy, of Tara, and she would cry before no one, not even after this dirty, tiring, demoralizing day that she had just lived through.

Her eyes began to close; a great weariness took her over so suddenly that she nearly swooned. Somewhere between sleeping and waking, she made her way back to the hotel and to her room, where she shucked off her crumpled, faded dress and lay down on the bed, without even bothering to climb under the sheets.

She was overtired, and though her body wanted to rest, her overactive mind was not ready for stillness. It worked and worked, bringing up before her pictures of all the people in her life that she had ever known. Wade's calf-brown, serious eyes loomed before her—Suellen's pursed mouth of disapproval—Sally's sly sneer and Uncle Will's kind grin. Rhett Butler laughed and jeered at her out of his swarthy, piratical face, so close that Ella felt she could reach out and touch him.

The Meades and Merriwethers and Elsings and Bonnells all jumbled about in her mind's eyes, beaming, petting, cooing, and saying one thing with their eyes while they said another with her lips. Faces that had meaning—and faces that meant nothing to her except that she had seen them.

She saw Aunt Pitty's nervous eyes and the cold gleam of India Wilkes' when she had let loose her horrible truth. The rolling black eyes of the negro taxi driver—the fat, florid face of the red-haired whore who had offered her lemonade—a pair of brilliant, shocking blue eyes, shaded by the brim of a hat. She did not know to whom they belonged, but Ella supposed she must have seen them, as she had once beheld all the others.

They crowded round her in those last moments before she slept and Ella wanted to push them all away, but she had not the energy to stop the strange chatterings and jabberings. She could only squeeze her eyes shut, hoping they would dissipate back into the thin air from whence they came, and leave her alone, in peace. There was not one face out of all of those that she wanted to see—not one face—save for the magnolia-white brow and slanting green eyes of the one she loved most—wanted most.

"Mother! Oh, mother!" It was her last thought before she drifted off.

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Kin lost the girl after she left the Café du Monde, and he could only suppose that she had gone back to the hotel to sleep. She had looked so weary, drooping over her coffee, and he had wanted to go and pillow her head on his shoulder and smooth her brow and hush her, as though she was a small child under his care. He could not get a good night's sleep that night, thinking of her. Had she indeed made it safely back to her room? Had she gotten lost, or waylaid? He was glad when morning came, so he could dress and go out and resume his trailing of her.

"Where the hell are you going?" asked Buck, pulling a pillow over his head as Kin let up the windowshade. "It's dern near the middle of the night."

"It's the morning—and I have some business to attend to."

Buck looked sulky at this closemouthed reply. Kin had never before had business which he, Buck, had not been privy to.

"'Spose you've found some whore," he mumbled, burrowing deeper into his covers. "And you don't want me to get wind of it, because I'd likely steal her away from you. The whores can't resist me, you know."

"I know," grinned Kin, and pulled the shade back down before he went out.

He waited for an hour before the girl appeared, looking terrible, as though she hadn't slept at all. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face was not pink-cheeked as it had been the day before, but white underneath its sunburn. She walked slowly, dragging her heels, but perked up a bit when she noticed him watching. He quickly looked away.

Outside, he tailed her back to Peach street, staying far enough away so that he would not arouse suspicion, but near enough so that he could keep close eye on her. It was not difficult, Kin thought, to keep an eye on her. In fact, it was hard to take his eyes off of her. She was such a pretty, determined thing, and every time he looked he noticed something new and enticing about her personage. Her eyes, for instance—he had gotten close enough to see that they hovered somewhere between green and brown. And her curls—the sun glinting pleasingly on the red overtones, which shimmered and turned gold in the sun.

Kin pulled the corner of his lip down. He was getting nearly as bad as Buck, mooning over females. It was another thing he hated about New Orleans—the bayou air wreaked havoc on his digestion, and made him behave in all manner of strange ways.

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At the start of her third day in New Orleans, Ella had less than a dollar left in her pocket and no more hope of finding her mother than she had when she set out to do that very thing. Less hope, even—for her search had been so fruitless, and she was rapidly coming to the end of Peach street. Only two or three houses remained. If Ella did not find her mother at either of them, she did not know what she would do.

She supposed she could wire to Rhett in Atlanta, and could ask him to send her train fare to come home. But that would be admitting defeat directly to the enemy. No—she would not do that. Aunt Suellen was probably glad to be rid of her and wouldn't send fare even if she could afford it. And Ella would not prevail on Miss Pitty. To prevail on Miss Pitty was to send word of her vanquishing to India. And Ella was determined that India Wilkes should never, never know the effects of her cold words.

Besides, how could she pay for the telegram? There was only one thing she could do: find her mother. If she could find her mother, everything would be all right. So she would find her—she must.

How strange—there was that man again—that cow-boy, sitting on the park bench, reading a newspaper. She had been seeing him everywhere. Either it was the same man or New Orleans was full of cowboys. She swept past him and their eyes met, and she had a jolt of recognition. No—it was the same man. She knew those eyes.

But there was no time to dwell on him, not now. She had something to do. She had not come to Peach Street to observe its inhabitants. There was only one person she hoped to find there. Ella climbed the steps of the next to last house on the street and rang the bell. There was a silence, and then the patter of footsteps coming toward her.

Ella had never been especially religious—she prayed, of course, but at times she had had the feeling that she was just going through the motions instead of actually praying. Well, she prayed now.

Please God, let whoever answers the door know my mother. Let her be there. Please, God, I'll do anything you want—I'll be good to everyone, even Sally and Aunt Sue—just let me find her! Please, God!"

After what seemed to be a lifetime, the door swung open. A little old woman was staring up into her face expectantly, her own face flat and broad but sweet, her blue curls quivering, and eyes blinking from behind thick spectacles.

"I'm looking for my mother," Ella began automatically. "I have reason to believe she was living here—on Peach Street—some time ago. I'm hoping she's here yet, or that you know her."

A glimmer of recognition started in the woman's eyes as she moved them from the top of Ella's hair, to her eyes, to her determined little mouth, and pointed chin.

"Her name is—" Ella began, but the woman cut her off with a gasp.

"Scarlett!" she cried, and all at once, Ella began to weep. She could not help herself. The tears just came out on their own—tears of gratefulness, and shock, and joy. Oh, God was good! For He had heard her prayers, and answered them.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I'm so sorry," Ella apologized, as soon as she was settled in the dark, luxurious gloom of the lady's sitting room, drying away the last vestiges of her tears. "It's only that I haven't seen my mother in so long…"

The old lady leaned forward so that her white curls bobbed and clucked sympathetically.

"Poor thing," she said, and, leaning back, pulled a velvet rope that hung by her chair. In an instant, a black maid in a white cap had come in with a tea-tray, from which she began to noiselessly and unobtrusively pour tea for her mistress and the guest. Ella leaned back into the deep upholstery, all of her previous cares and worries gone, tears evaporated, hope and excitement playing in her heart. This woman knew her mother! She would see her mother soon!

"Forgive my staring," said the hostess, who had been doing exactly that. "It's just that you look so much like Mrs. Jones that I can't scarcely believe it."

"Mrs. Jones…?"

Ella did not suppose that her mother could have adopted a pseudonym—the thought did not enter her mind that her mother could have been living under an assumed name. She felt confused, and for one terrible moment thought that perhaps this woman was mad, or mistaking her for someone else. But then Mrs. Devereux gave a great smile that creased her wrinkled face, and shook her head in approval.

"Except for the hair and eyes, you're the perfect picture of your mama. Scarlett Jones. She was sech a pretty thing, with her swoop of black hair. And you talk like her, too—that same Georgia-voice. Your ma tolt me how she come from Georgia. My you look like her! How mean of her to never tell me she had children! She was only a boarder, and as a rule, I don't make it a common occurrence to get too acquainted with my boarders. But Scarlett was different. I could tell she wasn't common—she was a lady. So quiet and sweet. She mentioned having a husband who died at Vicksburg, when I pressed her for her story, but she didn't mention any young'uns. Well, we all have our reasons for what we do. That's what your mother always said to me, dearie. 'Mrs. Devereux, we all have our reasons for what we do.'"

Mrs. Devereux leaned back and nodded her head contemplatively for a long while. So long, in fact that when she looked at Ella again she seemed surprised to see her there.

"Well! You are here, and you _are_ Scarlett's daughter, there's no mistaking it. Have some tea, dearie. It shore is a pleasure to take a cup with Scarlett's daughter. What if she walked into the room right now—how surprised she'd be! We were such friends. She often sat up with me in the evenings and we always took our meals together. I told her all about Mr. Devereux and how nice it was to have a female in the house. I never feel comfortable with the male boarders, but I always felt so safe with your ma about the place."

It was plain that Mrs. Devereux was of the same sort of temperament as Aunt Pitty. She had chattered on for a full ten minutes without hardly drawing breath, and without a chance for Ella to get a word in edgewise, and it was plain to see she had lost the original thread of the conversation. She blinked her watery eyes behind her spectacles and asked,

"How is your ma, by the by? Won't you tell me any news you have of her?"

Ella felt a cold feeling start at the top of her head and work its way down to her toes. Her hands became so clammy that she had to set down the fine bone china tea-cup she had not drunk from, or risk dropping it.

Her eyes dilated—her heart pounded. She began to put into a concrete thought the feeling that she had felt since sitting down in this rich parlour, a feeling she had hoped desperately against. Her mother was not here. Her mother had been here, but she had gone away. She was not here.

"Well?" asked the old woman, looking at her peculiarly.

"I haven't seen my mother in five years," Ella said. "That's why I came here to you—to find her. Do—do you mean she _isn't_ here?"

For a moment Ella thought the old woman would put her hand to her forehead and say, "Oh, silly me! Why, she's right upstairs!" but instead, she put her own tea-cup down and leaned across to pat Ella's hand consolingly.

"I plumb forgot," she said, and her face fell in consternation. "I'm awful sorry to have to tell you, dearie, but your ma went west some time ago. She said wanted to make a new start in some little town somewhere no one knew her. Ain't that queer? But it's what she said, and I suppose she did have her reasons."

"Where—did—she—go?" asked Ella in a voice that quavered.

"She wrote to me from Dodge, and said she was heading north from there. She didn't say exactly where—just north. But, dearie, that was three years ago and I haven't had a word from her since! She could be anywhere by now."


	14. Chapter 14

Think, Ella commanded herself. _Think_.

There were so many things to think of: what to do, where to go. She couldn't spend another night at the hotel—couldn't afford it. She couldn't even afford to take a taxi down to the depot. And what would she do when she was there? She couldn't make passage back to Atlanta, couldn't even wire someone to tell them of her troubles.

"Think," she said aloud, but her brain refused to do anything useful, just shrieked over and over, the one fact that had stunned it into unhelpfulness. Her mother was gone! Her mother was gone! And Ella did not know where to find her.

She knew now that despite all of her despair and frustration, she really _had_ expected to find Scarlett in New Orleans. Now she knew what despair and frustration and utter hopelessness really were. Think, think! she thought desperately, but her brain would not do as wanted it to. Mother is gone—she isn't here—mother is gone!

Her head was acting peculiarly, swimming round and round. She collapsed onto a wrought iron bench that faced the street and held onto it so that the cold curlicues cut into her skin. But it did not hurt her. It felt solid and comforting—the only real thing in a world that was a nightmare—must be a nightmare, and the thought came suddenly to her that she had failed.

She had failed!

She had failed for she had not found her mother. She was no closer to finding her than she had been when she set out on this fool's errand. Oh, why hadn't she stayed home? Why hadn't she gone back to Tara with her tail between her legs? Or stayed in Atlanta. Even Atlanta was preferable to this strange, friendless city.

It was dark now—she had stayed with Mrs. Devereux for a long while. She didn't know how long. It might have been a half an hour, it might have been five. The lady had patted her hand again and again and finally Ella had gotten away--somehow. She only knew a lot of time must have passed because it had been morning only a minute ago and now it was almost night. Where had the in-between time gone? The sunset was a fiery blaze in the western sky, away out over the levees, and the sleepy sounds of the far-off bayou mingled with the evening clamor of the city.

All at once everything seemed foreign and hostile. Where was the gentle city of this morning? It had disappeared. A black boy was sitting on the bench next to Ella, with a paper in his hands, and she suddenly envied him. How strange! He was a Negro, but he had a home to go to and people who wanted him—loved him. He probably had a mother, too. Ella thought of Dilcey, who had been so kind and mothering to her before she had gone away to Philadelphia. Her heart constricted painfully. She scrutinized the black boy, and wished suddenly that she could change places with him.

As she watched him, her eye caught on something—a familiar typeface—he was holding a paper and reading it, and it was the Journal-Constitution, an Atlanta paper! Mr. Henry Grady was the publisher, and he was a friend of Miss Pitty's! He had come to the house once during her stay there. Ella felt utterly, utterly homesick, and a wave of it so strong threatened to knock her to her knees.

"Can I have that paper?" she asked the boy, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, taking in her grimy dress and hands and the curls that had escaped from her net.

"A nickel," he said calculatingly, and without thinking, Ella reached into her bag and gave him one. How stupid of her! When she should be counting every penny. But she wanted that paper. She wanted to hold it. She wanted something familiar.

He tossed it to her and went away, whistling, and Ella took up the paper and turned the pages hungrily. Familiar names of stores popped out at her—there was even an ad for Kennedy's Emporium. Names and places she knew were all through it. Oh, if only she were in Atlanta! She was so alone here! Even India Wilkes was preferable to this. If Ella had seen India come strolling up from the corner of Bourbon street, she would run to her and throw her arms around her. She had never felt so completely alone.

Wilkes—how strange! The moment she thought the word, it jumped out at her from print.

_Mr. George Tazewell of Savannah is delighted to announce the engagement of his daughter, Maria to Mr. Beauregard Wilkes of New York…_

Ella gave a soft cry of amazement. To Mr. Beauregard Wilkes! Miss Maria Tazewell to marry Mr. Beauregard Wilkes! Beau—her Beau! For surely there couldn't be two Beauregard Wilkeses in the world!

She had not thought of him in days, so caught up she had been in her quest—but now she thought of him, thought of him with a vengeance. Beau, darling—darling Beau! She loved him but she had not thought of him and this was her punishment! His gray, dreamy eyes, his dear ways—and he was to be some other woman's and not hers! How could this have happened? He couldn't have known her for more than three weeks at the very most. It was quick, so quick—things were all happening too quickly. She had lost her mother and Beau in one day. One was a great hurt, the other even greater. She was not sure which was which—the two great hurts mingled into an anguish that threatened to overwhelm her.

Ella dropped her head into her hands and let the paper fall to the sidewalk, where it was trampled by passing feet. She wished that those feet could blot out the offending words, and make them not real. She wanted Beau. She wanted her mother. She wanted to go home.

She wanted her mother! Ella had a memory, then, of being a small child. Something had frightened her—she could not remember what—but she remembered her mother. It had been one of the times when her mother had not been dreamy, or busy. Ella had gone to her and buried her face in her mother's dress, and had been surprised to find that it smelled faintly of lemon verbena. Usually, it was Florida water or bourbon or dust from the lumber yards. But that day she had smelled so clean and good and her hands had been soft and tender on Ella's curls. She had teased Ella out of her fright, and they had laughed together.

The memory stood out in her mind because it was not the way things had often happened in that household—Ella's mother had usually said, "Run away and play, I am busy," to Ella's fears, or else had laughed at her. But once she had been kind, and how good it would be to have her mother nearby! To be kind to her again! She wanted that mother—she wanted her mother! Oh, so badly.

She began to sob, each coming from some place so deep inside of her that it wracked her whole body. She did not care who saw or heard her. She was alone, and she had been unlucky in love; she did not know where she would sleep, or eat, and she wanted her mother but could not find her. She sobbed and sobbed—she could not stop.

And then suddenly there was a soft touch on her shoulder, and a strong arm lifting her up. For a moment, Ella was nestled against a broad chest, then she was propelled toward a lighted place. Her head was down and her eyes were blurred with tears. Some stranger was helping her—some nice man had his arm around her. She did not care who it was—his touch was kind. Some nice person was helping her—a nice person with such strong arms and a voice that made such nice hushing sounds.

She raised her eyes and caught a brief, flashing glimpse of blue—she opened her mouth to say something—and then she fainted. She heard a voice say, "There, now!" even as those strong arms caught at her, and kept her from falling. She, who had not fainted in the face of India Wilkes, or Rhett Butler, or at learning the worst about her mother and at news of Beau's engagement, could not stand it anymore. It was too much. Ella let the blackness overtake her. She could not fight it anymore.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ella came back to herself to find that she had been laid out on a booth-seat in a dim-lighted room. There were a passel of faces staring down at her. Two of those faces had moustaches attached to them: a surprised, disapproving man with a close-clipped black moustache, a bewildered, alarmed-looking man with a long yellow moustache. Besides the moustaches, the faces shared no feature in common. And next to them, was a man in a tall tan hat with no moustache at all. But he did have such piercing blue eyes. Ella felt as though she knew those eyes from somewhere.

"She's fine now," said the blue-eyed one to the other two. "Renny, get her some water."

The black-mustachioed man scurried off to do as he was told, casting black looks back at the remainder of the little crowd. Ella struggled to sit up and two pairs of arms supported her, one on either side.

"I'll be," said the one with the yellow moustache. "I ain't never had a girl faint at my feet before."

The blue-eyed one did not look amused.

"Go and see if you can't find a doctor," he told the other. The yellow-haired man, who looked as though he were used to taking orders, scurried away just as quickly as the Creole had. There was something naturally commanding about the blue-eyed man—when he talked, people listened, and Ella listened to see what he would tell her to do. Whatever it was, she would surely do it. What else could she do? She had run out of options—it was better to let someone else think things for her, since her own brain felt sluggish and slow.

"There, now," said the blue-eyed man, as he had said before. "Are you feeling any better?"

Bit by bit Ella had begun to take note of her surroundings—the booth she had been lying on was connected to a table, with a red-checked tablecloth and a little candle in a glass dish.

"I've been here before," she said, and her own voice sounded like it was coming from someone else. "Where am I?"

"Café du Monde. You had a bit of a spell on the street—this was the nearest place to bring you. Sit up slowly—you don't want to risk falling over again. Do you know what made you faint?"

Something had made her—something must have made her. But she could not recall just what it had been. It seemed a lifetime ago. In the space of that lifetime, a more pressing human need had taken its place.

"I'm hungry," she said pitifully, and, ashamed and horrified, she began to sob again—that queer, sudden sobbing, as though she herself had no part in it. She was only conscious of the fact that she had not eaten anything all day. Her stomach roiled and she felt lightheaded. He seemed to know how she was feeling, and made a motion to the Creole behind the counter.

A jug of coffee and a dish of biscuits was delivered to their table and no sooner had it been set down that she reached for it. Ella ate hungrily for a moment, gorging herself on the food and drink. Her hands trembled as she tore into each biscuit—had there ever been any food more delicious than this? Even Mammy's biscuits couldn't compare to these.

She ate and ate, not caring how she looked doing it, before the man reached over and took the plate away.

"Not too much," he said apologetically. "You don't want it coming back up again."

The food had revived Ella—she sipped the thick black coffee with cream, feeling its heat move through her bones, giving her strength. She became more aware and awake—not enough to be bothered by the strangeness of her situation—just enough to feel pleasantly sated and a little dreamy.

"What is your name?" she asked, in the same far-away voice.

He thought about it for a while, as though not sure how to answer the straightforward question. Ella laughed—she was feeling so strange, so lightheaded and giddy.

"You can call me Kin," he said finally. "What's yours?"

"Ella—Ella Lorena Kennedy. Kin's a funny name."

"It might be, but it's mine. Behind that counter is Renny—he owns this joint. He's a friend of mine. And the man with the yellow prairie dog hanging from his chin—the man I sent for the doctor—he's Buck. He's a friend, too."

At the mention of a doctor, Ella set down her coffee and looked up helplessly.

"I wish you hadn't sent him," she said. "I—I can't pay for a doctor."

She cast her eyes down, feeling ashamed, but the man—Kin—seemed to take no notice.

"I don't expect Buck to find one. Oh, he set out with good intentions but he'll get distracted. I don't think you need a doctor, anyway. Some food and a little rest is all. I just wanted him out of the way so that we could have some privacy and you could tell me what it is that ails you. How does a girl like you end up all alone like this? Did—did some man leave you in a bad way? If that's it, there's a place I know…"

Ella blinked at him confusedly for a moment before she understood. Color flooded her face so that it turned crimson. He thought—he meant—oh!

"It's nothing like that," she said numbly, embarrassed to the core. "I—I was only looking—for my mother."

Tears again! How much would she have to cry before she cried herself out? Words began to pour out from between her lips in a torrent that she could not stem. Disjointed, fragments of words and sentences. She had a feeling underneath everything that she was not behaving as a lady should. But it did not matter. She had already done so many things that a lady should not do. She was hungry and friendless and alone. No—not exactly friendless—and not exactly alone. Kin was listening to her, and he looked so kindly at her that she could not help herself from spilling her whole story, in bits and pieces.

"He said she was in New Orleans—came on the train—came to find her—the Bourbon Orleans—only had enough money for a night or two—went to every house on Peach street. She wasn't there, she wasn't there—gone north—only had enough for a night or two—she wasn't there—and Beau, oh Beau! Don't know how I'll get home—home—he _said _she'd come to New Orleans but she's gone north—she wasn't there…"

She cried and cried so that even Renny, washing glasses behind the counter, began to lose his disapproving look and looked concerned instead, but Kin only took hold of her hand and said nothing. His blue eyes were kind and—and understand, Ella thought. She cried until her face and hands were as wet as if she'd plunged them into a watering trough.

She soon began to feel very tired and soon she could not cry any more. A great weariness overtook—all of the weariness she had felt in the past few days—it washed over her in waves she laid her head on the table before her, blinking miserably until her eyelids began to waver closed.

She must have dozed, for the next thing she was aware of was soft voices talking—"No, it's all right, I've got her"—and strong arms lifting her up—she was moving. Then she dozed off again, with the feeling of her head being cradled against something broad and strong—she woke again, to a sensation of being laid on something soft and feathery. Someone had unlaced her stays and she could breathe deeply. Oh, it was nice—nice—to be taken care of. She had never been taken care of before. Never in her life—even when her mother had been with her. All her life she had had to fend for herself. Now she was being handled as gently as if she were made of spun sugar. Oh, it _was_ nice.

She could not open her eyes but she wanted to thank whoever it was that was brushing her hair away from her face with such a light, soft touch. She wanted to thank them, but she could only mumble indistinctly.

"It's all right," came a voice—_his_ voice. "I know. It's all right—you can sleep. You're safe here."

Safe—she was safe. She gave a great sigh and for the first time in many days care was lifted away from her light shoulders. She could breathe easy. She was taken care of. She was safe—she was safe. She was…she was…

Ella was asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Ella woke in a shaft of sunlight, stretching lazily like a cat. Her mind came slowly back to itself, after the long sleep she had had, and the long day before that. She could not remember at first what had occurred. She felt rested and as she rolled over in bed she only thought, "Something happened yesterday. But what was it? Oh, I can't remember."

It did not seem pressing for her to remember—something else was forefront in her mind. Her stomach rumbled. From somewhere she smelled coffee and she sat up eagerly in bed, looking around for it. Her eyes suddenly adjusted to her surroundings and she gave a start, clutching the duvet that covered the wide, canopied bed to her chest.

Where—where on earth was she? She did not know this place. How had she happened to be here?

And then she clutched the duvet even harder in fright, for she was not alone in the room. Peeking around the door was a young man with a red face and a moustache so yellow that it looked as thought it had been colored in with a crayon. He gave a delighted smile when her eyes opened wide and fixed on his.

"Are you for me?" he asked hopefully.

Ella did not know if she should slap him or respond, so did neither, merely pulling the covers up to her neck and glaring at him darkly. He stepped back, properly chagrined, but his eyes were still optimistic.

Ella did not know where she was, or how she had happened to come to this—room, it appeared to be a hotel room, much like the one she had slept in for the past two nights. Only there certainly hadn't been a yellow-mustached cowboy in her room! But here was one, and he was running his eyes so appreciatively over her face and figure that she pulled the covers even further and deepened her glare.

Had she been abducted? Her heart began to pound and she cast her eyes about for something to use as a weapon, if it came to that. There was a marble statuette on the night table, and a heavy brass lamp, either of those seemed good possibilities. She was just about to inch her hand toward the lamp when the door of the adjoining wash-room opened and a tall, rugged man with dark hair and blue eyes came out, patting his face with a towel. He was red, too, and there was a dot of shaving foam just below his ear.

At the sight of him, all of the previous day's events came back to her and she sat up a little straighter, making sure to keep the covers pressed over her shoulders. Her head spun as she remembered: the long search, up and down Peach Street, the news that her mother had gone west somewhere; the crushing blow of Beau's engagement, and the pervasive weariness and hunger she had felt. And, too, she remembered the kindness of this stranger, this man called Kin—he had said his name was Kin, and he had taken care of her. Better than any of her real kin ever had. And this leering-but-agreeable yellow-haired man was—was—the name came from somewhere. He was Buck, and he was a friend, too, because he was Kin's friend. But she only wished that he would go away and stop staring at her as if he wanted to eat her.

"Let her alone, Buck," Kin said, as he finished mopping his face, and threw the towel in his the other man's direction. "She's not for you. Even if she was, this girl's a lady, and you wouldn't know what to do with a lady if one bit you on the nose."

Buck still looked hopeful.

"I could learn," he said, and extended his hand to Ella, who took it gingerly.

"Aloysius Carlton Eddystone Wilder," he said, with a courtly bow. "Known as Buck, to my friends. At your service, madam."

Ella shook his hand daintily and felt that an introduction must be made, despite the odd situation she found herself in. Lying in bed, having just woke, and in the presence of two strange men. But she felt the proprieties must be observed, even under such circumstances.

"I am Miss Kennedy," she said primly.

"Miss Kennedy!" Buck roared, duly impressed. "I ain't never met a Miss Anything before. This is a most eddy-fying experience. I'll be! Miss Kennedy!"

Ella took this opportunity to peek under the bedclothes. To her great relief, she found that she was clothed, though the buttons on her basque had been unlooped, and the laces on her stays loosened. She did the buttons hastily, not meeting anyone's eyes, and sat up in bed, smoothing the covers over her lap. Then she attended to her hair, which had becomes snarled and matted in her sleep, pushing as much of it back as she could into her net. Her efforts were not a success, for she seemed to be missing most of her hairpins, and could not stop some strands from escaping.

Buck's eyes lit up—he disappeared into a room adjoining and returned with something in his hand.

"For you," he said, presenting her with a small silver hair-comb, glittering with paste diamonds.

"I got it for one of my girls," he explained. "But I'd ruther give it to you. You're sweet."

Ella had the idea that it would not be quite proper to take a gift from a strange man, even if it was just a cheap silver-colored comb. Even if he did think her sweet—especially if he did think her sweet.

"No thank you," she persisted.

Buck would not be deterred.

"Well, I think you might take it," he said, beginning to look sulky. "I only give it out of a keen desire for friendship. And I think it would like right pretty on your little curls."

Ella supposed that she might as well take it, since he was intent on giving it. She had already accepted a meal and night's lodging from a strange man—what was one silver-colored comb compared to that?

"Thank you," she said, placing the comb in her hair.

"Buck," said Kin suddenly. "Don't you have an appointment?" He looked pointedly at the door.

"The hell I've got an appointment! What kind of appointment would any decent person be having at this time of the—oh. Oh, yes. I suppose I do. It plumb slipped my mind." He headed tactfully for the door.

Before he closed it he peeped his head back in and said, "I sure hope I get to see you again, Miss Kennedy. You're prettier than most of my girls."

Ella did not know what to say so she regarded him coolly, in silence. Buck closed the door and they heard his footsteps, accentuated by jangling spurs, move down the hallway and the stairs.

With him gone, Ella felt as though she might throw back the covers and get out of bed. There was a pot of steaming coffee on a tray, along with a plate of fried dough that smelled delicious. Her hunger of the previous day had not been totally abated by her scant meal the night before and she was ravenous. She poured coffee and drank, and ate three or four of the dough-pieces before she thought that perhaps she shouldn't have. Kin was watching her eat with a gleam of amusement in his eyes, and Ella thought all at once that perhaps she was eating his breakfast, and set down her cup and plate hastily. After all, she had not been invited to take any.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have asked…I didn't know…"

Kin waved his hand.

"Of course it's for you," he said airily. "I never bother with breakfast. Eat all you'd like. From the looks of you it's been a while since your last decent meal."

He did not ask her how long it had been, and so Ella did not volunteer the information. She was not sure how much of her conversation had made sense from last night, or how much of it he had remembered. She only knew that she _was _very hungry, and it _had_ been a long time since her last proper meal. So she sipped the coffee and ate, and Kin leaned back in his chair and watched her lazily, occasionally glancing out the window. He was so silent that Ella felt she must speak to break the quiet between them, or else scream. She was not used to people being silent, and did not know how to respond to a lack of conversation.

"This is good coffee," she said, taking another sip from the china cup. "I never had any like it before."

"It's chicory," he said, still watching outside the window. "And the other things are called beignets. They're a local delicacy."

He didn't say anything more. Ella reflected that he looked different without his hat. He was awfully nice-looking, with his dark hair and light eyes. She had never seen a man who looked so brown and wholesome before. The thought came to her that she had never in her life seen anyone so handsome.

But then she felt a flash of loyalty and added, without thinking too much about it, _except for Beau_. Of course Beau was handsomer. Then, at the thought of his name she felt weak again as she remembered that Beau was engaged. Oh, she wouldn't think of that now! She'd think of it later, when she could stand it.

Even if Beau was technically the more handsome, Kin was awfully nice looking. And he could just about speak with his eyes, when he wanted to. Right now they were blank, as he crossed one leg over his knee and twirled his spur absently. The jingling sound of it made her speak again.

"You're a cowboy—aren't you?"

"Yup."

"Oh, how interesting—I've never met a real, live cowboy before, although I've read about them in magazines. Have you—have you killed any Indians?"

He grinned then, suddenly less absent and distracted than he had been. There was something almost mocking in his eyes, but the overall effect was kind.

"'Bout a dozen," he said, laughing, and then his laughter faded abruptly and he stood and went out of the room.

Ella set down her cup and plate, confused. Was he coming back? Or, having saved her from imminent harm last night, was he done with her? Should she follow him, or stay where she was? She was about to stand and go out when the door opened again and a black maid came into the room with a bucket and went over into the washroom. There was the sound of water running, and Ella craned her neck to see that the porcelain washtub was being filled with steaming water. She fell back against the chair in surprise and delight.

A bath! Oh, she would love a bath! She felt layers of grime on her face and hands and her hair felt dirty and limp. A bath would be like a little bit of heaven. And, Ella thought, as she undressed and lay back in the water, which had been lavishly scented with bath oils—it _was_.

She soaked for a long time, until the water got cool, and then toweled herself dry and dressed in her chemise and petticoat, which had come through the past few days relatively unscathed. But she looked distastefully at her dress, which was grimy and worn about the edges, but supposed it couldn't be helped. She had no other dress. It seemed a shame to put it on when she felt so nice and clean, but there was no getting around it.

She did put it on, took a long while fixing her hair, feeling optimistic enough to sing while she did it. When she finally went back into the suite, Kin was seated by the window, having a smoke. Ella blushed to the tips of her ears to see him. While she had been bathing, he had been sitting there, just on the opposite side of the door. She supposed he could have heard everything, and he must have known she was—she was—well, not clothed. It wasn't right or proper that he should come in when he knew she was bathing just one room away!

Then she laughed. Oh, yes, the Merriwethers and Meades and Elsings of the world would have been shocked but Ella herself had already done so many things that weren't quite right or proper in the past few days. What mattered one little thing like this? The rules of the Old Guard did not seem to apply in her situation—and, Ella thought, surprising herself, it was almost more comfortable this way, not having to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing. If she stood on her head or stuck out her tongue she doubted that Kin would behave any differently than if she'd just said "Good morning" or made a pleasant remark on the weather.

He seemed much different than he had the night before, when he had been so kind and concerned. It was as though a veil had dropped down before his eyes, shielding his true thoughts. All the concern had gone out of them and something mocking and amused had taken its place. He pulled down one corner of his mouth as he turned and surveyed her.

"Well," he said, "I think a bath has improved your looks some."

Ella, who had been fiddling with her new comb, turned angrily. She was not used to being insulted so openly and brazenly, and before she could stop herself, she burst out:

"It would take more than a bath to improve the looks of _you_!"

Then she clapped her hand over her mouth, chagrined. Oh, she was terrible! He had helped her out of a real bind, and she supposed he had earned the right to insult her if he liked. And—and maybe he hadn't meant to insult her. Maybe he had only been joking. She saw now that he only had been joking and crimsoned again, but then relaxed, for he did not look as though he'd taken offense. In fact, he was laughing, his eyes lit up from the inside, and he looked at her with some respect.

"A regular spitfire!" he remarked to no one in particular, and then, turning, to her again, said,

"I like a girl that can stand up for herself. Now that you are nice and clean—perhaps we should go out and get you a real meal. You'll feel better if your belly is full. And then we can discuss your—your situation. Come along, Ella—I mean, _Miss _Kennedy. Let's hit the town."


	16. Chapter 16

"You can call me just Ella, if you like," said Ella, once they had been seated at nice table in a fine restaurant. To tell the truth, the restaurant was almost _too_ fine—the tables were covered in snowy white linens, and the china was thin and nice and the silverware heavy-and everywhere were men and ladies in silks and satins and sumptuous clothing. Ella felt uncomfortable in her grimy dress, but at least, she reflected, it was silk. Kin was only wearing dungarees and a buckskin jacket and his strange black boots with silver spurs. But he did not seem to feel the least bit out of place, and did not notice or care about the looks that were being cast at them. So Ella tried not to care, too, but it was difficult—she had always cared what people thought about her before and could not break that habit, and so many other ones besides, all in one day.

She forgot to be uncomfortable when the food came—mountains of food, platters and plates of it, almost too much for two people. There were bowls of rice and a thick, creamy stew and biscuits and crab-cakes and more fried dough and more of the strange sweet chicory coffee that she had tasted before. She ate and ate, and this time, Kin ate, too, and ate as heartily as she did, so Ella supposed his disdain for breakfast did not extend to other meals.

They talked a little, but not of anything important. He did not seem especially interested in her, and so she took the opportunity to ask him about himself. It kept her from thinking too hard about things that she did not want to think about. Her mother. And Beau. No—no—she mustn't think about them! Either of them. She'd think of them tomorrow.

"Do you like being a cowboy?" she asked him, expecting him to make a polite answer, and was surprised when his eyes lit up and he began talking. How odd he was—he could go from cool and remote to kind and friendly in the blink of an eye, and back again before she least expected it. She was surprised, too, to see that he really did enjoy his career—at Tara work was just something to be done, and in Atlanta, it was not only to be done, but disdained.

"I do—I like seeing places that are wild and fresh. I like riding through a place and knowing that but for the Indians, no one else has ever been there. I like places that are too young to have any traditions—for traditions stifle people and hold them back from their true potential. The best thing I like is stopping in a little town, and meeting some of the hardy, brave folks who are scratching out a living in those wild places. It is those people who will be the future of our country, Ella—those people who go to the untamed places and make a stand. I'm like them. The more untamed a place is, the more I like it. I'm going to Montana on a drive in a few days, and do you know what they call it, there, Ella?"

"No, what?"

"'Big Sky' country—because there are no tall buildings to crowd the towns, and everything is open and free. It's a thousand miles away from here but it might as well be the distance to the moon. It is so different from New Orleans. I don't like crowded, indoors places—settled places, like New Orleans. I don't like New Orleans. I can't breathe here—I can't breathe unless I'm in a place where things are open and wide and fresh and new."

"What's a drive? You said you were going on a drive—what is that?"

"A cattle drive. A man in Texas rounds up a bunch of cattle—about three thousand cattle, in this case, and then he hires a lot of hands to keep them in line and drive them north to the railroads, where they are shipped west. Or else, bypasses the railroads entirely and drives them to a new place, where he starts up a ranch and sells to the Army. The army is always looking for cattle and horses. Captain Hop Lexington wants to start a ranch in Montana—and I'm going to go with him, and so is Buck."

"Hop's a funny name, too."

"They call him that because he's only got one leg. Lost the other in the war. But it hasn't stopped him from being a success at rounding cattle, and it won't stop him from being a success at ranching, either."

"Do you think you'll stay there? In Montana?"

"Maybe. If I like it. Have some more gumbo—there's plenty of it. There's no need to scrape your plate. Here."

He ladled some more of the stew onto her plate and Ella ate with an appetite that did not wane or falter. Kin had had his fill so he pushed his own plate back, and settled his arms on the table to watch her.

Ella squirmed a little under his direct gaze but did not stop eating. She did not want him to see that she was uncomfortable being looked at so directly, but she did wonder what he was thinking about her. She began to talk animatedly to cover her embarrassment.

Kin was thinking that he had never seen any girl like her before. All the girls he had seen were either friends of Buck's or fine, city-bred ladies. This girl seemed to fall somewhere in between. There was a freshness to her that he had never seen in a girl her age. She had not been overbred, and trained in too many dull habits. If she was hungry, she ate. If she had something to say, she said it. But behind that was a natural sort of grace and delicacy that couldn't have been taught by an army of Old Guard matrons.

He liked to listen to her, to her musical, up-country twang, and to watch her hands as she gestured. He liked to watch her eyes light up or mellow or grow sad and remote. She was so young it broke his heart. He doubted that he had ever been as young as she.

"How old are you?" he asked suddenly, cutting her off mid-chatter, and taking her a little aback.

"Sixteen."

Sixteen! She seemed so much younger than that and at the same time, so much older. She was as untrained and uncultured as a girl half her age, and yet there was a grit to her, an independence that took years to develop. He had the idea that she had not been looked after in the way of most other southern girls. He was glad. That way she had not been spoiled. But it made him sad, to think that she should have had to learn to fend for herself so young.

"How old are you?" she asked, looking up at him sidelong from under her lashes.

"Quite a bit older. I'm twenty-five."

"Twenty-five! That's not so old—only nine years more than me. And besides, I thought you were older than that."

"Really? Why?"

"Because—because you sort of walk apart from people. Well—and because you don't seem to care what people think or say. And you—you seem to have a lot of money."

"It doesn't take any great attainment of age to earn a place at a card table."

So he was a gambler! Ella thought, and knew she should be shocked. Proper people didn't gamble—and if they did, they didn't talk so openly about it. But she wasn't shocked. In fact—she felt sort of admiring of him for it. It seemed such an easy way to make money, far more interesting than farming and banking and reading the law. And Ella knew that it took a cool head and some skill to earn money as a gambler. It was _different_—that was why she liked it. It was unlike anything she had ever known before, and everything she had known before had been so dull and oppressive.

She finished her meal in a thoughtful silence, and when the last grain of rice and bit of sauce had been sopped from her plate, Kin flung down a pile of bills and stood.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They headed away from the Quarter. Kin, who had no great liking for any part of that balmy, southern city, found himself seeing it through her fresh eyes. She exclaimed over everything: the low-slung moss that stretched from tree to tree, the marble tombs in the sunken graveyards, the wrought iron fences and fragrant gardens shielded by spreading magnolias and more low Spanish moss.

He pointed things out to her as they passed: the canal, St. Louis Cathedral, and the statute of President Jackson upon his rearing horse; the Beauregard house with its scrollwork and sloping lawns.

At the name, Ella stiffened. "Don't let's talk about that," she said hastily. She did not want to be reminded of Beau—did not want to think of him when she was having such a nice time. He seemed to realize that she did not want to talk about it, even if he did not know the reason, and pointed out the Jax Brewery and a tarot card reader who was telling fortunes for a nickel.

"Do you want to get your fortune read, Ella?"

"No," she said, a cloud falling over her face. She was strangely superstitious and feared that the turbaned woman would tell her things she did not want to know. Again, Kin seemed to understand and did not press the issue. They walked on, leaving the fortune teller and her cards behind.

"How do you know so much about this place?" she asked, giving another of those sidelong looks that touched his heart so queerly. It was almost as though she were afraid to look at anything straight on, unless it vanish before her eyes. To cover his feelings, he spoke gruffly, making his face extra-stern.

"I grew up here," he said.

"Really? Do your mother and father…?"

But he quickly pointed out to her a streetcar that was going past. Ella clapped her hands in delight as it clanged its bell.

"Shall we hop on?"

"Oh yes—let's! I've never ridden on a streetcar before."

They took a ride and stepped off in the Treme, which was teeming with people. A trumpter was playing a slow, mournful tune and they stopped to watch him. He switched to a more upbeat song and Kin watched Ella almost fondly as she tapped her foot in time with the music.

"Do you know this song?"

"Yes—it's called, 'When the Saints Go Marching In.'"

"What a funny name for a song! I wonder how it goes?"

As though she had heard the girl's prompting, a fat black Negress took up a spot next to the trumpter and sang in a rolling, melodious voice, the lyrics:

_Oh! Yes I wants to be in dat number _

_When de Saints go marching in! _

They bought jambalaya from a street vendor and ate it out of paper cups as they walked along to the Fabourg Marigny. There, Ella had her first glance of the mighty Mississippi as it lay before her in late afternoon splendor. She leaned on the wrought iron fence and watched the orange of the sunset spread itself over the flat, gray waters, giving each wave and ripple the tone and life of a gleaming jewel.

She had never thought that any place on earth could be as lovely as Tara. Staunch, white Tara, half-hidden by dark cedars and tumbling cape jessamine and wisteria, with flat yellow creeks and brooks snaking about it. How could anything compare to it, and be more lovely? But, then, she had seen so little of the world. She was a little surprised that anything so foreign could touch such a resonant chord within her, and fill her top-full with so much beauty. But here it was, and she was struck and quietly awed by the quiet gorgeousness of that ever-changing river.

"I've never seen so much water in one place before," she said, in a quiet voice, a little awed. "Raoul Picard's family owned ten miles along the Mississippi before the war. I can see why they were sorry to lose it. It's so pretty."

The wind whipped her hair and a few riverboats went by, lighted and crowded full of people. The faint noises of music and laughter came to their ears from a distance and the smaller vessels of fisherfolk slid silently past the in waters that were becoming black as they sun dipped low—lower—and disappeared and the world was plunged into night. One mellifluous Negro voice was raised in a sad, haunting melody of song.

_It's been seven long years _

_Since I've last seen you _

_Wah-hey! You rollin' river… _

_It's seven long years, since I've last seen you. _

_Away, I'm bound away! _

_'Cross the wide Missouri. _

The sound of it in the lowering night, looming out against the stars that were beginning to dot the blackness over the river, almost caused tears spring to Kin's eyes, which made him angry with himself for being so sentimental. The girl was crying, but not out of fright or sorrow, but at the way that the words and melody touched against her heart.

"Let's go," he said, gruffly again. "This isn't a nice place to be after dark."

They found another streetcar and rode it back to the Quarter, stopping into the Café du Monde, where they had been the previous night. Renny, the Creole behind the counter, looked cautiously as they settled into a booth, wondering if the girl would faint again. It was exciting, such a stir was, but decidedly bad for business.

Ella was in no danger of fainting. She was sated and rested and crammed full with food and her cheeks glowed pinkly in the faint candlelight. She had had such a pleasant, interesting day. It was a shame that it was about to be ended, but it _was_, she thought, as Kin's face turned suddenly businesslike. He poured a cup of coffee and sipped from it, then he set it aside.

"Now," he said, "Let's talk about things."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ella told him everything, in a halting voice, starting with her visit to Atlanta, and ending it precisely at the point where their paths had converged, just after she had heard that her mother had gone north and west. While she was telling it the pink faded from her cheeks and she again became that white-faced, trembling, unsure girl that he had first known her as. She kept her voice low, and her eyes downcast, twisting the red-checked tablecloth in her hands as she spoke.

"So now I don't know what I should do," she finished. "I haven't found my mother and I suppose I should go home. But I don't want to go home."

And, she thought suddenly, where _was _home? It didn't seem to be Tara, not anymore, not that she knew the extent of which she was living on charity there. Not now that she knew her mother was alive—was out there, somewhere. It wasn't Atlanta, either. She did not belong in Atlanta, among all the stiff-necks and the scandals of long ago. It wasn't in Baltimore with Wade. Ella knew she might go to Wade, but she knew also that Wade would not be glad to see her. There was no bond of connection between the siblings. He would look at her ruefully from his calf-brown eyes and wonder why she had come. And Ella would wonder that, too.

And her home was not in Savannah with Beau. It would never be in Savannah with Beau, and it would never be Twelve Oaks. Some other girl would live there with him. Ella had lost her place, lost her chance.

She found herself suddenly telling Kin of Beau—of how she loved him, and of her hopes and of how cruelly they had been dashed. She did not know why she told him but the words were drawn out by a force greater than herself, which she did not understand. She kept her eyes downcast as she spoke, and did not notice as his face grew more and more remote.

"I suppose I should go home," she said again. "But oh! I don't want everyone to know I've failed. Rhett would never let me live it down."

He had been silent, staring out into the darkened streets through the fly-specked window, but turned sharply to look at her, her words bringing him suddenly back.

"Rhett? Why did you say that name? Who is this 'Rhett' to you?"

"Rhett Butler," said Ella weakly, wondering at the fire in his eyes. "He's my stepfather. Why—why? Do you know him?"

"It's a strange name, that's all," Kin said, turning his eyes back to the street. His mouth was suddenly very hard. Ella supposed he had grown tired of the conversation, and her mind worked frantically to find out other options.

"I suppose I don't have to go home," she mused. "There's nothing for me there, after all. I could still try and find my mother. It seems such a shame to have come so far and to give up." She twisted her hands. "I—I could stay in New Orleans and—and—and try to find some work. I know I could save up some money somehow. And then I could go north, and look for her."

He turned back and studied her critically.

"What kind of work do you think you could find in New Orleans, Ella? There's not enough work to go around as it is, and there are many people sitting idle who would jump at the chance of employment, people more qualified and stronger than a girl like you."

"I could find something," she said humbly.

"The only work you could find would be in the trade of flesh." He was abrupt. "Like Buck's girls. And I don't think you'd like that very much, Ella."

"Well," she said, glossing over his unsavory reference, unwilling to give up on her dream. "I could write letters, then, and send them out. I'm sure someone must have heard of my mother, and know where she is."

"But how would you begin? Would you write to every Mrs. Jones listed on the census rolls? They are wildly out of date, and there must be hundreds—thousands—of women by that name. And it's not even your mother's real name. She may have adopted another, entirely different one. How would you find her, then?"

He was so dismissive that anger flared brightly in her.

"I know I could find her!" she cried. "I know I could. And you—you could help me. I know I could find her if you helped me."

"I can't help you." He was laconic. "I'm leaving in a day or two and going west, Ella. Much as I wish you well I won't be held in New Orleans a day longer than necessary. Not even for…"

He stopped. He had been about to say, "Not even for a pretty thing like you." He had not realized how much he admired her until that moment, but as he scrutinized her white, turbulent face he realized he did think her pretty—quite the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was so changeable, so determined, and so damnably pretty, in a way that went to his head like champagne. He was annoyed at himself—how like Buck it was to be taken in by a head of ruddy curls and a pair of flashing greenish eyes. And Kin was not like Buck. He had always prided himself on the fact that he was not sentimental, that he did not bend to the wills of more human needs, and was quite immune to feminine wiles.

Until now. Irritated, he spun his spur and said, cruelly,

"Why don't you run along home like a good girl? There's nothing for you here."

But Ella did not hear him. She was staring at him, but beyond him, not seeing him, or the dingy walls of the café. She was looking at possibilities. A nebulous idea had begun to form along the corners of her mind and she struggled to make it come into cohesion, to make it more concrete. He could not help her because he was leaving, and going west, a thousand miles west to the Big Sky country. Her mother had gone west. Kin was going to Montana—the cattle drive would take him through miles of territory, full of little towns. And he would stop in them and meet new people, pioneer people. He had said so himself. He was going west, and her mother had gone…

Suddenly it gelled and she looked up at him, her eyes burning bright, like a cat's. Her mother had gone west and he was going west, too, and…and…

"I could go with you," she said, and her eyes glowed greener than ever.


	17. Chapter 17

"It would never work," said Buck, pushing his hat back, and shaking his yellow head.

Buck Wilder was a simple man. He liked simple things. Fine food, fine liquor, and the company of a pretty whore or two. He was used to the easy life. All he wanted or sought was a girl to sport with, some cows to drive from here to there, and a place to lay his yellow head when the work's day was done, and the time had come to lay it down.

He had come to New Orleans to sport and gamble and sow his wild oats for a few days before heading up the trail. And now he was faced with an idea so off-the-wall and out of the ordinary that he couldn't rightly wrap his head all the way around it.

It was not just that Kin wanted to take a girl on a cattle drive to Montany—it was that Kin wanted to take a girl anywhere at all. In the years that they had been pardners Buck had seen Kin do a lot of things. He had even known him to go with a pretty girl when the pretty girl presented herself. But he was not one to seek out the comfort of females. And this wasn't just any girl—this was a lady, a little southern belle. And Kin seemed, well, if not taken by her, interested enough in her to propose this crazy idea to Buck and expect him to take it seriously. Buck pushed his hat back further and mopped his brow again.

A girl on a cattle drive! All the way to Montany! And not just any girl—a girl like this girl. She was so white and fancy and it was obvious that she'd never seen a day of work in her life. It was rough riding to the north territories. There were hills and rivers to be crossed, and Indians. Buck had a great fear of Indians, and if he was so terrified of them, how would this girl react to their savagery? Of course they were nearly licked, the Indians, but a few tribes remained and it only took one Indian to get you in a heap lot of trouble. Buck wondered if this girl had ever even seen an Indian outside of a dime-novel or a magazine. And that was not even mentioning bandits, or gangs, or even their own drunk, rowdy cow-hands.

How would she like sleeping on a bedroll on the ground; eating from a chuck-wagon; sitting round a campfire at nights, listening to the high wails of the coyotes—or worse? And there were other things—feminine things. Why, they'd all have to be on their best around a girl like this. No cursing, no spitting, and very little whoring. His face fell at that last thought.

"Phew!" he said, just thinking about it. "Phew!"

He bet she'd never done any roping—or shooting. And riding! Buck narrowed his eyes and looked at the girl.

"Have you ever set on a horse?"

"Plenty of times," said Ella, surprising even Kin, who looked at her with newfound respect.

When Ella had broached her plan, Kin had surprised himself by agreeing to it almost right away. He was in a bit of a bewilderment at himself for being so agreeable about it. He was not often agreeable to anything, unless he'd thought it up himself. Of course he knew it was madness, taking a girl along on a cattle drive. It would have been madness to take a girl on a drive to Abilene or Dodge, or some place not too far away. But Montana! Most experienced hands hadn't been to Montana. It was madness, madness, and he, Kin, must be mad.

But—it would be something new, something different. No one had ever brought a girl along on a such a drive. It would be a nice way to vary the monotony of the long days. And, Kin had to admit to himself, it wasn't any girl. It was this girl. It was Ella.

He liked Ella. There was no getting around it. It wasn't just that she was pretty and young and sweet. He had seen girls every bit as pretty and young and sweet as her. No—it was that something in her story touched him—reminded him of his own unhappy youth, his lonely upbringing in the hostile, two-faced south, where people smiled out of one side of their faces and spit out the other. He had been alone. He knew what it was to be abandoned by his own folks.

And—something in her plan made sense, in a roundabout way. If Scarlett Butler or Jones or whatever she was calling herself, _had_ gone north, it made sense that she would have settled in one of the little towns along the rail routes or the trail-heads. There would be plenty of chances to ask about her. If she was to be found, this was the way to find her.

She touched him, she interested him, she made him feel quite tender. He did not want to let her go.

And she never ceased to surprise him.

"You ride?" Kin asked her, and Ella smiled.

"Yes—I had a little pony, back home at Tara. I rode nearly every day, if the weather was fine."

Buck shook his head again at that.

"A pony's a different thing from a horse," he said. "You've likely ridden about a little pasture or bridle path. Ain't no paths along the trail. It's rough terrain."

She glowered; Kin glowered. Buck nearly laughed out loud to see the two stony faces, side by side, as alike in their emotion as two peas in a pod. He wasn't worried over the girl's sour face, but Kin's scowls bothered him a bit. Buck had been with Kin long enough to know that once he had set his mind to something, only God or the devil could make him unset it. And Buck, despite his best devilish efforts, had never been able to make him do it yet.

"Look," he said, "Riding's the one thing. Roping and branding is another. You know how much ground a drive covers in a day—ten, fifteen miles, if it's moving at a good clip. I've been riding for years and there's some days I can't keep up. And then there's the fact that this girl can't defend herself. We're apt to run into any amount of trouble up Montany-way. Them Indians ain't been entirely tamed yet. And this girl can't protect herself."

"I can shoot," Ella heard herself say, and this time, both faces swiveled toward her and she blushed.

"My brother Wade—he had a pistol—it was his father's. He'd let me use it and shoot at tin cans in the back yard."

"Tin cans and Indians are two different things," Buck said. "Tin cans don't move around and they most often don't shoot back. This is a plumb fool idea, and I wash my hands of it. You should, too, the both of you. See sense! It won't work."

"Look," said Kin, pounding his brown fist on the table. He was a cool-headed man, most of the time, Buck thought, except, sadly, for the present, when he was acting a dern fool. He liked to reason things out, and Buck tilted back in his chair, eager to hear how he would try to reason out this idiocy.

"For starters," Kin was calm, "She can ride. And it doesn't matter if she rides well or not. She _will _ride well—because it will be ride well or left behind. We've taken boys along who were younger than her—Tommy Renwick was fourteen on his first drive and he'd never been outside of the Matagorda his whole life. Second of all, she won't have to rope nor brand. We aren't hiring her. She's coming along on my dime and I'll pay her way. Third, it isn't the first time a woman's been along on a drive and don't pretend you don't remember how Dulles Wayne brought his woman on a drive all the way up to Ogallala."

"For starters, Tommy Renwick was a ranch hand his whole life," said Buck, imitating Kin's style of argument. "He knew the back end of a cow from its front, I reckon. And he ain't no female. A female's got no place on a drive. And as for Dulles Wayne's woman, she was a Mexican, and a who—well, she wasn't a lady. And third," Buck's face lit up triumphantly, for he had found his trump card, "Third, Cap'n Lexington won't go for it. An unmarried girl on a cattle drive will cause more trouble than a bull in a china shop. He'd take his whip to you if you brought any lady of the single state along on one of _his_ drives."

Ella had been listening to the argument with her chin cradled in her hand, her eyes darting back and forth between the two red faces. She accepted each point with a nod and was not bothered by Buck's protestations. She knew, in the end, Kin would have his way. She did not know him very well, but she knew him well enough for that.

It was plain to see, though that Buck's last argument had floored him, for Kin turned one corner of his mouth down and scowled more deeply. Buck _had _stumped him, and Kin knew very well that Captain Lexington would rake him over a bed of coals and back if he brought an unmarried girl along on a drive with a dozen, red-blooded cowboys. He wouldn't mind the raking over the coals. He had stood worse than that before. But the thought came to him that Captain Lexington might outright refuse to take him on the drive if he had a single girl in tow.

Ella saw him his brows come together and the corner of his lip turn further down, and with it she saw the last of her hopes dissipate into thin air. Name of God! She must find some way to get him to take her along. She must find some way to make it all right. _Think_, she told herself. _Think_! The wheels turned, and finally the solution presented itself. It was none to savoury to her, but it seemed to be the only way. She felt giddy with relief—and at the meaning of what she was about to say.

"We could," she began, addressing Kin, "We could get married."

Mary, Mother of God! Had she really said that? Oh, how awful—but how thrilling! She, who had never so much as been kissed on the lips, was actually proposing marriage to a man—a man she barely knew. She was in agonies of embarrassment, and then a cold draught spilled over her. Kin was looking at her so strangely. Suppose he refused her—suppose he said no? Her current humiliation would be doubled, then. And it did look as though he might not have her. Indeed, he did not seem to be the marrying kind. Ella felt so miserable at that very second that she would have welcomed another fainting spell. If only she could go back and take back her words!

But the words had been said, and they could not be unsaid. Two pairs of eyes set in two red faces fixed on her again, and this time it was Kin's that were the more astonished. Buck began to roar with laughter, holding his sides, tears of mirth seeping out of his eyes and into his yellow moustache. Kin! His pal Kinnicut, married! Why, Kin wasn't a marrying man. But then he abruptly stopped, because Kin wasn't laughing. In fact, he was staring at the girl, and his mouth was twisted into a wry smile. He wasn't laughing, and he wasn't saying no, either. Buck was so surprised that he stopped tilting back in his chair and fell forward with a thump that made his hat slip over his eyes. He brushed it back, quickly, so that he could see what it was that would happen next.

"Do you know what you are saying, Ella?" Kin's mouth had turned up in a smile, but it did not quite reach his eyes. Something unreadable played in their blue depths. "Don't you think you are a little young to be contemplating marriage? And do you really think you'd like being married to me?"

"I'm sixteen," Ella said indignantly. "My cousin Sue was married a year younger than that. And it's not like we'd _really _be married," she added hastily, "Or that we'd have to _stay_ married. It would just make things proper so that I could go up the trail with you. And when I found my mother—well, you could divorce me."

There! I've done it! she thought, and the last vestiges of the ties to her old life were cut, like the tow lines on a boat, and she began to drift away from her old self, from the girl she had been at Tara and in Atlanta. Not only had she proposed marriage to a man, but she had also mentioned divorce—more than that—she had practically guaranteed him one. Oh, well, she thought. There was no getting around it. All the same, she was glad her mother wasn't dead. If she were dead she'd likely be rolling in her grave at this very moment.

But maybe not. Ella reminded herself of what she knew of her mother. Maybe Scarlett would be proud of her for her quick-thinking, for her diligence, for her drive, and the lengths she was willing to go to to find her. Yes, Ella thought that maybe her mother would not find it so wretched, after all. She squared her thin shoulders, and speech came more easily.

"Lots of people get married when they don't love one another. I don't believe Susie loved Mr. MacIntosh at bit when she married him. She couldn't have! And getting married isn't such a terrible thing, or permanent. It can be undone—divorce is so much easier to get nowadays. It would be only temporary, Kin. Just for a while and then you could be free. And I—I suppose I wouldn't mind being your wife, if it was only for a little while—and in name, only," she added hastily, less he get any ideas about what exactly she was willing to do.

With a pang, Ella suddenly thought of Beau. She did not know why she should think of him so unbidden, but there he was, looming larger than life in her mind's eye. His thin, high-bred features and his languid, careless grace! His utter familiarity and his easy ways! She saw Kin but did not see him. If only he were Beau! Her eyes clouded and her mouth fell open as a slow, soft pain rose in her heart. Oh, only a few short weeks ago she had thought she would be his wife! Beau's wife! And here she was, offering herself to another man. Her flushed face went white and her lips trembled.

_I won't think of Beau now! It hurts too much. I'll think of mother instead—mother—mother—I'm doing this for my mother. _

But her mind was not quite willing to let the picture of him go. Beau! Beau! Beat her heart. Beau—Beau—oh, if only you had cared!

Kin saw the change that had come over her and its cause was not lost on him. He had listened to every part of her story and not one thread of it had slipped his mind. He suddenly felt a peculiar, hollow rage rise up in him against this man he had never met. He did not love her or want her—but she did not love or want him, and for some reason, that rankled. She preferred to Kin a lily-livered, aristocratic southern _gentleman_, and that irked him. He had not been prepared to marry her until that moment, when he realized that she wanted someone else. Then he was determined to do it. He would marry her, and that fine Georgia boy should never have her!

"Let's do it," he said coolly. "Let's get married, then. I'll get the license and we can do it tomorrow at the courthouse."

Buck, who had been too stunned by this turn of events to even breathe, suddenly leapt to his feet in surprise.

"Well, I'll be a damned dirty dog!" he crowed, bringing jocularity back into what had become a very tense and sober situation. He punched Kin playfully on the arm.

"And you always said it was me who would fall victim to matrimony. Even bet me ten dollars that I'd do it before you. You said you never would. But look here! The way I look at it, you owe me ten dollars, Kinnicut—and I expect to receive it. We shook on it and everything. Pay over."

Brought back to herself, Ella laughed—and Kin laughed too—but there was something missing from the tone of each. Ella's laugh was giddy and had a tinge of hysteria, while Kin's was harsh and too careless. He took a gold piece from his pocket and tossed it to Buck, who caught it and kissed it, laughing still. His laughter was full of true mirth. He touched the brim of his hat in a courtly way to Ella.

"I'm much obliged to you for helping me win this," he said, pocketing his quarry. "I always wondered about the woman who'd finally get Kin in the end and I'm pleased to see I haven't died before she come along. And now I'm going to take this bachelor out for one last drink—but first we'll walk you back to the hotel, Miss Ella. It's getting late and you'll need your beauty rest. After all, tomorrow is your wedding day."

Her wedding day! Ella felt lightheaded as she undressed in her room and got herself under the covers. Tomorrow—would be her wedding day. Her mind went back to the wedding that she had hoped for, planned for, wished for—her wedding to Beau. She had wanted to marry Beau under the scuppernong arbor at Tara—or the wide, shady verandah of Twelve Oaks. But now Beau was marrying someone else and so was she. Jealousy and rage boiled over in her. She must find some way to let _him_ know about it, even if she told no one else. If he knew that she was married, he'd be sorry. She wanted him to be sorry, because he had not wanted her. She wanted him to feel as empty and helpless as she felt right this very minute, at the thought that tomorrow, she would be another man's wife. Even if it were only in name, and not in feelings—it was a momentous step. She did not feel quite ready for it.

But it was the only way. This way, she could go and find her mother. And Kin wasn't really so bad. And it wasn't as though they were in love with one another. Although—although, she thought sleepily, nestling into the pillows, he wasn't entirely unlovable, either. He was really a good, decent fellow and she had not forgotten that he was handsome.

"And he takes good care of me," she yawned. "I feel almost as if I could like him a lot if he'd let me. Oh, I won't think of this marrying business anymore tonight. It hurts my head—and heart, a little. I won't think of Beau, either—I'll think of mother. I mustn't forget I am doing this to find my mother. Oh, mother! Mother! You are worth it, darling."

Sleep caressed her tired mind and she closed her eyes and breathed more deeply, wondering as she drifted off, what a cattle drive would really be like. And—if being married to Kin would really be so bad. Perhaps he would expect things from her—married people things—the kinds of things she was not willing to give. But she certainly wouldn't think about _that_ tonight. She'd think about it tomorrow—tomorrow—tomorrow. She could stand it then.


	18. Chapter 18

Ella's wedding day dawned gray and drizzly. New Orleans was a gloomy city when the sun shone hotly down, thanks to all the moss and the tall pines and the dark cedars. With the overcast sky and the hovering stormclouds, it was positively depressing. No one wanted to be out in such weather and so the streets were deserted. Not even a rooster crowed or a branch or leaf stirred in the windless, humid air. There was not a sound except for the low thunder, rumbling out over the still black waters of the bayous, and a forlorn wail of a train whistle from down at the depot. Ella heard it, and for a moment wished so strongly that she were there in the station-yard, clamboring on that train, on her way back to Atlanta. She did not want to go to Atlanta; but then, again, she did not really want to be married, and at least Atlanta was familiar, even though it was unpleasant.

She had an idea that marriage might be unpleasant, also—perhaps more unpleasant. She had known so few married people in her life. Aunt Suellen was not a happy person and she had been married—and Uncle Will, for all his good-nature, had never seemed exactly happy, either. Cousin Susie had married George MacIntosh, the youngest of the MacIntosh boys, and he had taken her away to Tennessee. Susie had not wanted to go but she had had no say in the matter and had been carted away, crying as she went. And Ella's mother had been married, three times—and everyone knew how that had turned out.

And there were other things. Ella was not so naïve that she did not know all of what marriage entailed. Marriage meant sleeping in the same bed with a man, and—doing other things, too. The particulars of those other things she did not know. They had been hinted at, gigglingly, while preparing Susie's meagre trousseau but Ella had not felt it proper to inquire further. But whatever they were, she supposed that they, too, were not pleasant. These were the things she had worried over last night, and decided to put off until the morrow. But now it was tomorrow—that was the problem with putting things off to tomorrow. It always came, and then the bald unpleasantness that had been deferred must be faced down.

How strange, that she had once wanted so desperately to be married to Beau! But things would be different if she was married to Beau. Ella knew that. The train whistled sounded again, from farther away and she turned a little toward the sound. Oh! At this very moment, she could be going home!

Kin seemed to know what she was thinking and grinned faintly.

"Not too late," he told her. "You can still back out if you want to."

Ella thought of her mother—had a sudden memory of black hair, green eyes, a soft hand upon her fevered brow. Mother! Oh, mother!

"No," she said softly. "No—I don't want to back out."

They walked in silence down the deserted street, Kin on one side, Ella on the other, and Buck in the middle. Buck was the most excited of the three, and grinned from side to side at either of them in intervals. Kin was wearing his buckskin jacket and his dungarees, spurred and booted, and Ella was in her old faded, grubby dress, but Buck had dressed up for the occasion, in a black waistcoat that had obviously seen better days, and a shoestring tie. He had even trimmed his moustache in deference to the occasion. He whistled happily for a few moments and Ella thought her overwrought nerves would snap at the sound. Kin cut him off, as though he were feeling much the same way. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Kin was never overwrought. Although, Ella thought, casting a quick glance at him, his mouth seemed a little more set than usual, and his face wore a too-studied look of nonchalance.

At the courthouse door, they paused and Kin turned to his friend.

"You go in," he said. "I want to talk to my bride alone for a moment."

Buck seemed loath to go, and miss any of the action, but he started for the door, casting looks back as he went. When he had gone, Kin faced Ella squarely.

"I have something for you," he said.

"A present?" she cried, her youth and excitement showing plainly in her face. She was not grown up enough that the thought of a present was not an inticing thing.

"No"—and he opened his hand, to reveal in it a gold pocket-watch. Ella was dismayed—she had been expecting a present, despite what he said. She was mildly irritated—she thought that perhaps he might have brought her a present. It was, after all, their wedding day, and it seemed only fitting.

"I've already got a watch just like that!" she wanted to cry, but then she looked closer and saw the intials G.O'H gleaming faintly from the flat, gold clasp and she gasped. Why, this was her watch—her grandfather's watch, which had been safe in her reticule the whole time she'd been in town. What was he doing with it?

"I stole it," he said, looking down in her face, studying her features closely.

Her lips started to form words: where, when—why? But she did not have to speak for he anticipated her queries.

"On the train—when you were on the train. I saw you there. I took it out of pure meanness, Ella—because I was down on my luck, and because I didn't want you to have it. Take it, now."

She took it, tucking it into her reticule, where she thought it had been all along. Her mind was working.

"You could have put it back into my bag," she said. "You could have done it any time in the past few days when we've been together. I never would have noticed. Why didn't you? Why didn't you do that? Why tell me?"

"Because I wanted you to know just what kind of man you are marrying," he said, squinting his eyes as he looked down into her face. "I'm a scoundrel, Ella, a blackguard. A gambler, and an outcast. I don't have any family and I don't particularly want any. I make my money by cheating at cards, and I suppose that makes me a thief. I've been a thief in more direct ways, too, as you can see—and at times I've been worse than that. I stole from you. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. And I felt it only fair that you know the truth before you got yourself in too deep."

She looked up at him, not knowing what to say.

"Do you still want to marry me? Knowing what kind of a man I am?"

She thought about it. He might be a thief—but he had also been her only friend, in a time that she needed friends, the most desperate time of her life. He had taken care of her and he had wanted nothing in return. And he would bring her to her mother. No, she did not care if he lied or cheated or done worse things—as long as he could take her to find her mother.

"I don't care," she said, "I still want to do it." She took his arm, he grinned down at her, a flash of his old good humor restored. Then together they went into the courthouse to be married.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Try as she might, Ella would never be able to remember the particulars of that day. Everything would always be jumbled up into one heap of memory. A pleasant memory, though—pleasanter than she expected.

She only remembered bits and pieces of the actual marriage ceremony—the justice of the peace reading the words that would bind her to Kin, and her own replies, so clear and startlingly cold. They exchanged no rings, and there was no kiss. Ella had thought there might have been a kiss and had steeled herself for one, but it did not come, and she would always remembering being faintly disappointed by that, without knowing why.

They went to Tujague's, a restaurant in the Quarter, facing out onto the French Market, for their wedding feast. There were gumbos and etouffes, and a platter of enormous crayfish. Crème bisques, andouille and smoked sausage, and salad with olives, champagne…lots and lots of champagne. It was not as nice as the restaurant that Ella had been to the day before, but something infinitely more charming about it. She quite preferred it to Antoine's. It was homier, and, somehow, Ella felt like she _belonged_, here.

A fat white woman in a grease-spattered apron came out of the kitchen and kissed Kin on both cheeks, chattering to him in a language that was decidedly not English. Ella did not know it, but for the first time she was hearing Cajun-French spoken by a true Acadian, and the rolling, rollicking sound of it entranced her.

The woman kissed Kin again and turned to Ella, swooping her up into her arms.

"So you're the girl who done won this boy's heart!" she said, holding Ella at arm's length to admire her. "You're a sweet thing, and pretty, but too skinny, dawlin, that's fa sho! Eat—eat. Eat up, there's plen'y, and here's a lagniappe for you. Y'all! Come have a looka 'Zavy's wife!"

A crowd of men and women descended upon them, and there were cries of "'Zavy, you done married?" and "Oh, Lawd, some'un musta put a _gris_ on him!" Kin shook hands good-naturedly and Ella was introduced to so many people that her head began to spin. Where had they all come from? When one body moved away, another appeared to take its place, and the fat, laughing woman presided happily over it all.

They all had named like 'Joanie' and 'Theo' and 'Petty Jacques' and 'Fat Gus,' and they pumped Ella's hand enthusiastically, each one of them, and said things like, "Bless her little heart!" and "Gawd, you sho is pretty enough to eat, _cher_." They sounded like Negroes, with their lazy, flat, ungrammatical drawls but they were kind and nicely dressed, so she supposed they weren't poor. Thank goodness! She'd had enough of elegant poverty in Atlanta. It was wonderful to see a group of people who were fat and gaudily-dressed. The women wore feathers in their hair and the men had colored bow-ties and close black moustaches.

Ella could tell at a glance that none of the women were ladies and none of the men were gentlemen. They were not, what was known in Atlanta, as "quality folks." She did not know how she knew it but she did. Why, they were no less grammatical than Raoul Picard and Bob Lee Wellburn, but there was something in the way they carried themselves, something in the way they did not censure the emotions that played across their florid faces. They were not ladies, and they were not gentlemen, and she did not mind. In fact, she liked them better for it, and they seemed to like her. But…

"Who are they all?" Ella wondered, when she could get a word to Kin. "Are they your family?"

He laughed—he seemed happier here than anywhere else she had seen him. His long legs had relaxed and he looked languid and loose-limbed. He called something in French that made the group laugh and hoot and slap each other on the backs, and then he turned back to Ella.

"Not family," he said, "But the closest thing I've got. That's Mama Tujague at the head of the table. She's been like a mother to me. No—they aren't family—but these folks have seen me through some hard times."

"Hard times? What sort of hard times?"

"Never you mind," said Kin, but Mama Tujague laughed, a great, deep, rolling belly laugh.

"Lawd, he's had his share. He musta been the worst child this world has ever seen. He gave them nuns at Ursiline a heapa trouble, din' you, 'Zavy? I seen Sister Mary Rose on Calliope the other day, and she say to me, 'Mama Tujague, how many times was it we done kicked 'Zavy Kinnicut outa this here school?' And I said it musta been a dozen or more—and each time he come runnin' here to me, to take him in. She ain't done forget you yet, boo—and I don't think she will."

Ella smiled at the thought of Kin as a little boy. She tried to think of him as school-aged, but could only see a smaller version of himself, with miniature spurs and Stetson. She was surprised, too, to find that he was educated. She had not expected a cowboy to be educated—Buck certainly hadn't, that was apparent—but then, Kin was decidedly different from Buck, more eloquent, more grammatical. Still, she could not help seeking confirmation for this strange fact.

"So you went to school here—in New Orleans?"

"Yes—for longer than I care to admit. Left as early as possible, though. My father wanted me to stay—but I ran away as soon as I was able."

"How bad you must have been!" Ella laughed, but noted the way his lip curled when he said the words, 'my father.'

It was the most he had ever told her about himself, and she had not failed to notice the way he turned inward whenever she asked about his family or his folks. It struck Ella, also, that she knew very little about this man who was now her husband—for the time being. Questions rolled through her mind—who was he? Who were his people? What did he want out of life? But she settled on one, an easy one.

"Kin," she asked curiously, "Why does Mama Tujague call you 'Zavy?"

"I reckon 'cause that's his name," piped up Buck, who was in his element, with a glass of champagne in his hand and two fat, dark Cajun girls in his lap, one perched on either knee. "You're Ella Kinnicut now—Mrs. R. Xavier Kinnicut. Ain't that some name?"

"Xavier! That's a nice name, Kin. I've never heard a name like that before. Where did you get it?"

"It was my mother's name." His lip did not curl when he mentioned his mother; there was something tender in his eyes instead. "She was Isabelle Xavier before she was—well, when she was young. Come on, Ella, let's dance."

Someone had produced an accordion and was making it sing; someone else had a rub-board and another a harmonica, and the little group broke out into a spicy, rollicking zydeco waltz. Ella danced briefly with Kin, and then was handed from man to man, each of whom wanted a chance to dance with the little bride. Ella danced and danced—never in her life had she danced up such a storm!—and the whole while she was thinking,

"Why, this is nice. Perhaps being married isn't all that bad. These people are fun and they seem to like me, and I've had such good food and champagne—and Kin hasn't tried any funny business. It would be so lovely if being married could be always like this. What a fool I was to be so nervous!"

But she was nervous again, after the party broke up, and they had bidden everyone goodnight, Mama Tujague kissing them both and wishing them many happy returns of the day. Then Buck departed, with one of his Cajun girls, and Ella knew that they would not see him again until morning. She and Kin walked through the dark streets back to the hotel, and her heart pounded with each step she took. They had come to an understanding about being married but they had not come to an understanding about—about the other things. His arm was about her shoulders companionably, and she didn't mind that but suppose he wanted—or expected—something more? She trembled when she found herself standing before the door of her room, and placed her hand on the door to steady herself.

"Well, goodnight," she said, hastily, and tried to open the door and get in, and close it before he should get any idea about following her, but Kin held her so that she could not go. There was the faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.

"Just a moment," he said, and laughed softly at the stricken look that came over her face.

"Ella! Ella!" he said, putting a hand on either of her shoulders. "You needn't worry, dear. I'm not going to force myself on you—or make you bestow on me any of your wifely duties. I want there to be an understanding between us in that respect—I shall not bother you with any of that. So don't worry your head about it. I am, however, going to kiss you—it is your wedding day, and every bride should be kissed on her wedding day, no matter what reasons she has for marrying. Ella—have you ever been kissed before?"

She shook her head 'no' and he grinned and leaned down to her. She surprised herself by tilting her face up, so that he might meet her lips more easily. Why had she done that? She had not meant to do it, but she did.

His lips were upon her, then, and somehow his arm had found its way around her waist, and he was holding her so close that she could not tell if it were his heart that was beating so rapidly or hers. Her arms went around his neck.

His mouth was gentle, but there was something almost insistent behind it, as though he could be rough and forceful if he did not rein himself in. Ella surrendered wholly to her first kiss. She felt at once a sense of wonder—so this is what she had been missing!—a sense of being carried away on a great wave of feeling—and a slight feeling that she was being disloyal. She had always wanted to save her lips for Beau. The wonder and the wave bore her past the disloyalty. She did not think of Beau again that night.

The wave crested and peaked and rolled back—he was no longer kissing her, but Ella found that her face was still upturned, as if she wanted him to do it again.

He did kiss her again—on the forehead—and then he let her go.

"Goodnight," he said, and Ella was left standing there in the passageway with burning lips and tousled hair, and a strange, not unpleasant humming in her ears, as her husband—her husband!—turned and walked down the hall to his own bedchamber. His spurs jingled as he went. He gave her one last grin before shutting the door firmly behind him. Ella opened her door and went in, climbing into bed and falling almost immediately asleep after the strain and excitement of the day. And that was how the Kinnicuts spent their wedding night—each alone, but each remembering the thrilling feel of being held so briefly in the other's arms.


	19. Chapter 19

With the matter of matrimony settled, Ella turned her thoughts to the drive. They would be leaving the day after tomorrow, and there were a great many things to prepare. The plan was to ride north and west into Texas, and to meet up with the rest of Captain Lexington's gang just near the Red River Station. Ella, who had never been anywhere in the world except for the County, Atlanta, and now New Orleans, was agog at the amount of traveling that was now before her.

Kin had traced for her on a map the route that they would take. From the Red River they would head due north into the heart of Indian Territory along the Chisholm Trail. Ella listened with a thrill of excitement as Buck and Kin recounted to her the story of Jesse Chisholm, the man who had blazed the trail. They told her of Oliver Goodnight and Charles Loving, the two cattlemen who had blazed their own trail north to Wyoming.

"They were the first to reach those parts, back in the '60s," Kin told Ella. "The place was crying out for livestock and they sold every head at a profit."

"They must have been very rich, then." An acquisitive gleam came in her eyes. Buck laughed.

"I suppose they were, but fat lot of good it did them. Old Loving died of gangrene after a Comanche attack before he got to spend one red cent."

A little fear rose in her at this. Indians were something new to worry about. It had been many generations since Indians had roamed Georgia. The only contact Ella had ever had with the race was Dilcey, who had always claimed to be half-Indian, and Dilcey had been one of the nicest people, white or black, that Ella had been privileged to know. She bit her lip. For the past few days she had been regaled with Buck's stories of the bloodthirsty savages, and their brutal, cruel ways. Kin saw her pull a face and laughed.

"Don't worry—it isn't a big danger. Buck's touchy when it comes to Indians—his gold scalp would be a prize, hanging from one of their belts. It's more than likely we won't run into any. The Comanches have been mostly cleaned out, I've heard."

"All it takes is one," said Buck darkly, and Kin laughed again.

"Come over here, Ella, and I'll show you the rest of the route."

After crossing the Cimarron, the drive would swing west through Kansas and up into Nebraska all the way to Ogallala. Then it was west, further west still, to the little town of Cheyenne. Cheyenne, they told Ella, was the last bastion of civilization on the frontier. From there on it was only army and Indians, "And," Buck said, glumly, "I don't know which is worse."

But they would not stop there, at Cheyenne. North to Fort Laramie, and then, crossing the Platte and the Powder, it was into Montana territory, the 'Big Sky' country that Kin had told her about. Ella was almost sorry she would not get to see it. It sounded vast and exciting. But she was sure she would find her mother before getting that far.

The whole drive would span one thousand miles and more, and take near to four months. It was April, it would be October when they arrived in Miles City.

The drive would take them through Indian Territory, through the towns of Dodge City and Ogallala, Hays, Julesberg, and other, smaller places. Ella ran her fingers over the names, and wondered in which it would be that she found her mother.

She did not doubt that she would find her mother. Her mind was not made for doubt, and Ella never faced it until all hope had been given up. She was certain she would find Scarlett, and find her soon. She did not wonder about what would happen if she did not find her. She would not even let herself think of it, and when the thought did come into her mind she said,

"Oh, why would I think about that now? I won't until I have to," and then she did not think of it again.

She could hardly wait to begin, and sighed at the thought of the two-week ride to Texas, to join up with the rest of the hands. She wanted to go now, now! Now that a plan had been laid, she didn't want to waste a moment.

But there were certain things that must be done. A telegram was sent to Captain Lexington, to inform him of Ella's accompaniment, and he sent back a scathing reply that was none-too-happy about the turn of events, but he had acquiesced, and that was all that mattered. With that done, Ella must be outfitted.

She knew that she needed a new dress and had thought that she might purchase a cheap, serviceable riding habit, but Buck laughed, and Kin shook his head. Instead, Ella had several pairs of dungarees. She tried them on, feeling naked and exposed. It felt strange to walk without the heavy layers of skirt weighing her down. She blushed at Buck's openly admiring look.

"She's got legs, for sure," he said. "What a pity you had them covered up when we first met! I might have married you myself if I'd known you had legs like that."

Kin said nothing, and handed her a pair of boots with a pointed toe and a sheepskin jacket.

They went to a corral outside of town to buy their horses; Kin knew a fellow and could get them a good deal. Ella watched in wonder as the great beasts were paraded around the paddock for them to see. She had had a little brown and white pony at Tara; these horses were as different from him as could be. Mr. O'Hara had been a calm, smooth, placid little pacing pony who trotted only after much prodding, and refused to ever do anything more than a canter. He was so gentle and tame that she could let the reins drop on his back and pay no attention at all, and the pony would walk right up to the stable with no prompting whatsoever.

These horses were hands and hands taller, and looked wild and untamed so that she shivered. She doubted her ability to climb up on any of those animals, much less sit atop one for the thousand miles to Montana. She shivered and had to lean against the rail fence, and the hot sun suddenly seemed very far away and not as bright as it had before.

Buck picked out a white charger in no time, but Kin took a little longer. He checked each horse, looked at its teeth and hooves, and pulled two saddled animals out of the line, a glossy, proud thoroughbred, and a tall black beast that looked to Ella like some sort of demonic creature. He pawed the ground and snorted and she shrank back.

"We'll go for a ride," Kin told the stablehand. He alighted with ease upon the brown horse—Buck had already climbed onto his white charger, and was pacing about the yard. Kin gestured at the black horse.

"Come on, Ella."

Oh! He couldn't mean for her to get onto that beast and ride it! She wouldn't—she couldn't. Kin seemed to know what she was thinking, and his eyes flashed scornfully and mocked her. Ella, who had one second before been determined that she could not do it, now knew that she would. She'd show him! She put her foot in the stirrup defiantly, and swung her other, dungaree-clad leg over the animal's back.

Goodness, she thought, she had never been perched so high above the ground before. It seemed a very long way off. What if she felt and this beast trampled her? She'd surely break her leg or—or worse.

She realized that she was sitting in an approximate sidesaddle, with her leg crooked around the saddle-horn, and gently eased her leg over so that she was sitting astride, instead. She supposed she must—she was wearing dungarees and it was all quite all right, if not exactly proper. But what did proper mean, anymore? Ella laughed nervously.

She had never been astride a horse and found it loads more comfortable than she had thought it would be. Cautiously, hesitantly, she touched her heels lightly to the horse's ribs and brought him into a walk. Astride, she felt much more in control, and the black horse did not seem to be so fearsome as he had a moment before. She made him trot, gaining confidence, but then, without warning, Kin leaned over and swatted the horse's flank with his glove.

The black horse went into a gallop at once, and Ella, who had not been expecting it, jounced and bumped as she tried to get her bearings. For one, dazzling, impossible moment, she felt herself slip sideways and knew she would fall—and be crushed beneath the pounding hooves. The sky tilted alarmingly. Her heart beat in her throat. The hooves sounded so loudly, and she clutched the pommel, having dropped the reins, and hung on for dear life, wondering if this would be her end. To die ingnominiously in a half-rate corral, without ever having started on her way to find her mother! No, it mustn't happen! She struggled to right herself.

But then she did right herself and sat straight. The horse adjusted himself under her, for the first time Ella knew what it was to move in tandem with an animal. The wind was in her hair, and her mouth was open and smiling—how strange! her fright had gone—and she was laughing. She found her reins and dropped into a canter, and then, just to show that she could, took the horse over the rails that were placed in the center of the paddock—neatly, cleanly, and with very little effort.

She reined in and walked back to Kin, and regarded him furiously, her brows almost as dark as her horse.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, fiercely. She had handled the horse well, but what if she had not been able to? What if she had fallen? Kin pulled down the corner of his mouth.

"One reason—I wanted to see exactly how much skill you have. There are many things on a drive than can spook a horse with no notice—a snake, a roll of thunder, a change in the wind. If you were a mere trotter, I would have had misgivings about bringing you along. But—"

"But I showed you I _can_ ride."

"Yes—you can, which surprised me, Ella, very pleasantly. You must do it again sometime—I like to be pleasantly surprised by people. I underestimated your talents. You're a good little horsewoman. I suppose it's the Irish in you."

He was vaguely mocking and she stuck out her tongue at him—and took the horse over the rails again. What a magnificent beast he was! So powerful, and really very gentle for all his fearsome blackness. Why had she been afraid of him before?

"You're a sweet thing, aren't you?" she said to him.

Kin grinned. "Do you want this horse, Ella?"

"Oh, yes!" she said, leaning forward to pat his neck lovingly. The horse snorted and shook his head, as if disdainful of her caresses, and he looked so black and haughty that she was suddenly inspired.

"Oh! I'm going to name him Rhett Butler! He's just like Uncle Rhett, to a _t._"

Kin's lip sneered, and he dismounted all of a sudden. "We'll take the three," he told the stable hand, "And the saddles and tack, too." Ella laughed again and took Mr. Butler over the rails once more, before dismounting herself, and following Kin out of the corral.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There were other things to be gotten. Ella had a bedroll, a canteen, and a small canvas tent which would be strapped underneath her saddle. She had a rain slicker, and a change of clothes in her saddlebags. A mess of rations, a silver hunting knife, which she took to wearing in her boot, like Buck wore his bone-handled Bowie knife. She had soap and iodine and quinine tablets to ward against the malarial mosquitoes they would be sure to encounter. She had a hat—she had wanted her to get a pretty sunbonnet, bedecked with roses and ribbons, but they laughed at her.

"A hat like that won't keep out the wind nor one drop of rain," said Buck. "Best get a ten-gallon, Ella, or you'll be as brown as a Mexican by the time you get to Montany, and then Kin will divorce you for your looks. He likes 'em white and pretty, don't you, pardner?"

Kin said nothing, and Ella took the Stetson she was proffered.

She had a pistol—only a few times before had she held a pistol in her life, and now she had one of her own. It was a pretty thing, silvery, with a pearl-handled grip, and she took it out of her holster often to look at it and admire it. She did this several times before Kin became angry with her.

"It's not a toy," he said harshly. "That pistol might be the last thing between you and your health if things go from bad to worse, and they might. It's for shooting, Ella, and I intend to see you can use it."

She surprised them again by being a competently straight shot, and Buck laughed.

"Wish I could get me a woman who could shoot like that. If I had one, I'd stay drunk all the time and pick all the fights I wanted, and let someone else settle them up for me."

"How," Kin asked, with a sudden smile that was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, "Would that be any different from usual?"

Ella had a fork and a knife and a fold-up frying pan for cooking over camp-fires. She had a compass, in case she was lost, and Kin showed her how to find her direction using the stars. Ella learned to tilt her head up and find the north star, gleaming against the velvet sky, at the handle of the big dipper.

"'Follow the drinking gourd,'" she said dreamily, quoting from one of Dilcey's favorite spirituals.

"That's right," Kin told her. "If you ever find yourself lost or alone on the plains—you just look straight up and find it, and follow it north to the nearest town."

North—follow it north—to her mother! Just as the slaves had followed the north star to freedom, so Ella would follow it to Scarlett. She smiled, but then a little cold wind blew over her at something he had said.

"'If I find myself lost'—but, Kin, I won't ever find myself lost or alone on the plains!" She looked to him for confirmation. "Will I?"

"Not," said Kin, "While I have breath in my body. But all the same it's best to know, Ella—just in case."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On their last night in New Orleans, Ella took a gold piece from Kin's wallet and hid it in her pocket. That was the nicest thing about dungarees, that they did have pockets. It was so convenient. How had she ever stood for wearing skirts and bustles for so long?

She slipped away from the crowded saloon where they had gone to have a drink before starting on the trail in the morning. It was a tradition, Buck said, and they made Ella take a shot of whisky as initiation. It lit a trail down her through that flamed and made her cough and they pounded her back and laughed. She had not wanted to do it, but she felt that she must, partly to mark the occasion, and partly so they would not laugh at her and think her a silly, unwilling, feminine thing.

She had never had whisky before—nor a drop of spirits save for scuppernong wine that Dilcey made, on a few occasions, or a hot toddy, that one time she had been sick with a cold. It went to her head and she felt pleasantly warm, and her courage was strengthened enough so that she could slip from the saloon, and make her way down the block to the telegraph office, where she placed her money on the counter and said,

"I'd like to send a telegram, please."

Ten minutes later, she made her way back, and found Kin and Buck in the center of a roaring crowd of men. Buck was telling a story and making everyone laugh, but Kin's face was a little white. His eyes, which had been scanning the room, blazed at the sight of her.

"Where did you go?" he asked sharply, taking hold of her arm with an equally sharp hand. He pulled her to a quiet corner, away from the rest of them, and scowled down at her. Goodness, he looked so ominous! Almost as sinister as Uncle Rhett when one of his moods came over him.

"Nowhere—just outside," she babbled, suddenly afraid of him. He had been so kind to her, but she was not unaware that a dangerous current seemed to float just beneath the surface of his placid, easygoing nature. Ella was not eager to be caught in it, or to see exactly how dangerous it could be.

"I just went outside for a bit. I just needed air."

"Don't lie to me!" his eyes flashed. "I can stand anything from a woman except for lies. Tell me. Where did you go?"

Oh, she might be his wife, but she would not be talked to this way! Even if he refused to take her along on the drive—and he wouldn't, she knew that—she would not grovel before him or try to placate him. What business of his was it where she went, and when?

"I had something to do," she said coolly, lifting her chin, and her own eyes were hard as flint.

Kin studied her, this girl, who, in a week's time, had gone from being a complete stranger to his wife, and nodded. She had things, just as he had his own, that were to belong to her, only. He would not make her tell them, just as she would not make him tell. He nodded, and his mouth suddenly softened, and he took another drink. Ella did not notice that his hand shook slightly, and had she noticed it, she would not have known that it was a sign of the cold fear he had felt, looking up and not seeing her by his side, missing her face among the crowd, and wondering frantically if she had gone away on her own or been carried off.

"Don't ever go off again like that," he said, wiping his sleeve across his mouth, and this time, it was Ella who nodded. She wouldn't leave his side, from here on out; she would stick with him—and he would take her to her mother.

"I won't," she said softly, and she meant it. "I won't do it again."


	20. Chapter 20

Rhett did not dwell on his encounter with Ella for very long. There were few enough things in his life to really distract him, but his work kept him busy. But it did not satisfy him the way it once hand. He was surprised, and chucked mirthlessly to himself over it. He had been a blockade-runner for a long while, and then stopped it. He had been a Scallawag, but stopped that, too. He had been married to Scarlett—he stopped work as abruptly as he had done the other things, because he had lost interest in it.

"But there are a heap of things here for you," said the clerk, pointing to the desk, which was laden with papers. "Contracts, and loan agreements and all sorts of stuff. What should I do with it all?"

"Burn it," said Rhett.

"What about the telegrams? You got a telegram today. What should I do with it?"

"Throw it in the bin for all I care," he said, and he simply walked away.

There! He was done with that. But how to fill the empty hours? How to fill the empty days—the lonesome nights. For they were lonesome, he had to admit. He did not like to admit it, but his lavish suite of rooms in the Atlanta hotel felt small, and the walls closed him in once the sun had gone down and the gaslights turned up.

He set to walking about the city at night, but that did not help, either. Atlanta was to him as a tale that is told, and a tale that wasn't even that interesting to begin with. He hated every stick of it. Nothing about it comforted him—not even the thought that Bonnie had been alive here. He found himself going more and more to see Belle. Atlanta had never ceased to be a town that loved gossip—and Rhett Butler had been respectable for so long that its citizens had despaired of him every doing anything worth talking about again. But now, they perked up, and the stories spread like wildfire.

He was with that Watling _creature_ every night, and sometimes all night. Uncle Henry Hamilton had seen him leaving at ten o'clock in the morning, and he had grinned at him, and doffed his hat, with no shame! They say he brings her presents, said the matrons to one another in scandalized whispers. They say that he is madly in love with her! Her! They had not approved of Scarlett, but at least Scarlett had not been the town bad woman.

"_I_ wonder what they do together," whispered Fanny Wellburn to Maybelle Merriweather. "It can't be…_that_. Rhett might be a scoundrel but he likes a pretty woman, and the Watling creature is terrible old and frowsy now."

"My dear, with a man like that it simply doesn't matter. There's only one reason for a man to visit a woman like…her, and it isn't for the pleasure of her conversation."

"Oh! Do you really think?"

"My dear, I _do_."

No, Rhett did not visit Belle for conversation. They had long ago covered very nearly every topic together—they had run out of things to say, but it did not leave them feeling distanced, but brought them together in the manner of very good friends who do not need words to communicate. Nor did he love her. He occasionally brought her a present, but it was only out of habit and politeness. And Rhett did not visit her for those other reasons, either. He went to Belle only because it was in her private room that he could unburden himself, that he could rest.

Sometimes she stroked his tired head as he sipped whisky from a crystal glass. Sometimes he spread his long body on her velvet chaise and closed his eyes as she read to him, from Hardy, Dickens, and Thackeray. Her voice was well-modulated and smooth, with all of the hard bluster that she put into it in public gone with just the two of them together. The Atlantans who had ever had the misfortune of actually speaking to Belle Watling thought her a lazy, placid, ungrammatical, despicable figure. They did not know, as Rhett did, that she her own background would have put many of theirs to shame.

They did not know that for the first seventeen years of her life she had been called Isabella, and was the daughter of the largest landowner in Jefferson Parish, indeed, the belle of four parishes, and the tales of her strange beauty had stretched even to New Orleans. There was many a duel fought over her, and a young man had even gone so far as to drown himself in Lake Ponchatrain—a man from a good family—because Isabelle Xavier would not have him.

Her waist had been tiny, and her feet and hands white and fluttering. Her eyes were limpid and large but otherwise remarkable, and she had been thin, then, with flat, ordinary features in a flat, ordinary face. No—those things did not make her beautiful. It had been her hair—she had long, shining white hair, the hair of an old woman. It had been a pale, unremarkable brown but then gone white, overnight, in the middle of her fourteenth year. There were many stories about what had caused it—a tragic love affair, perhaps. Or maybe someone, envious of her prettiness and popularity, had put a _gris_ on her.

She was convent educated, but it had not stuck. "Isabelle is a willful child," the nuns had said, before they sent her back home to Gretna, glad to be rid of her. She had a peculiarly lethargic air, so strange for a girl of fifteen, which unsettled everyone in the convent. They all felt, without knowing why, that she would come to no good in the end.

Belle proved them right, for in the summer of her sixteenth year she was caught in a compromising position with one of the swains from the next plantation over. What a scandal it had caused! The stable-hand who discovered them, and all those who subsequently heard about it, never forgot the picture of Isabelle Xavier, unclothed, her white hair tumbling down over her nakedness, her body and that of her companion smooth and bland when juxtaposed with the dull roughness of the hay on which they had been conducting themselves so tawdrily.

Of course it could not be hushed up. She was whipped, and, when she refused to marry the man, who had proposed at the first sign of trouble, she was sent away from her home without a cent. It was not difficult for her to find her way to New Orleans, and subsequently find work in New Orleans, and she did not mind her work, for there was a dangerous current of carnality that ran under her smooth, well-bred exterior. The madam of her house made her dye her hair—the weird white stuff was no good, she said. The hair that had made Isabelle Xavier so intriguing to the men of her acquaintance was unsettling to her paying customers. She was also made to change her name; the Xaviers were known far and wide as a nice family, and no one would want to sport with the daughter of a landed gentleman. No—she must call herself something different, and she chose the surname Watling, which was her father's first name. Belle took a strange sense of glee that she should use his name, of which he was so proud, as the pseudonym of her new profession.

It was there in New Orleans that she met a man called Rhett Butler, when she was eighteen, when she had been a whore for over a year. Rhett did not mind her being a whore. He liked Belle, and appreciated her unconventional appetites.

"It is so refreshing to find a woman who delights in her sin. Perhaps you should pretend to enjoy it less. It's very unbecoming for a paying customer to think that, despite his pretty sum, you are getting more enjoyment out of the transaction than he is."

"Why should I pretend I don't enjoy it?" she asked, in her strange, blunt, languid way. "I do. Lord! I've had my name crossed out of the family Bible for it. I'd be a fool to give up the comforts of home for something I took no pleasure in, and I do intend to get the most pleasure I can out of life."

Their child was born the next year, and for the first time in his life, Rhett Butler did not know just what he should do. He was thirty years old and an outcast from his home, as she was from hers. But the calm assurance of his position had never quite deserted him. He had gambled and prospected and dueled and sported with a cool head and a calm hand. But now, faced with this woman and her child, which was also his child, he did not know what was expected of him. He looked down into the sleeping baby's face and cursed the wee male thing. Rhett had always had a carefree, wayward existence, and he resented that this creature should threaten to take it all away from him. The baby opened his startlingly blue eyes and began to cry, and Rhett wished he could drown the squalling brat.

It was Belle who settled matters.

"Don't even think about talking to me about marriage," she said. "I'm a whore—you can't marry me no more than you could marry a mule. And I wouldn't be married for all the tea in China. I like my work—I don't want to be tied down to one man. Lord! That would never do."

"I never thought about marrying you," he said truthfully. "I respect you too much for that, Belle. But what would you like from me?"

She was thoughtful for a moment, and then she said,

"I'd like for you to set me up in Atlanta. I want a change of pace. I'm tired of the greasy little Creoles who come to call on me. I'm tired of New Orleans. I think I'd like to try being a Georgian instead."

He agreed. The child was easily disposed of, sent to the Ursilines, who would care for him. Rhett would pay them a sum of money every month for his care. The nuns insisted he should be baptized, and they baptized him. But before they did, there was the matter of his name. It must be settled.

Kinnicut would do for his last name—it was the custom that bastards took some part of the name of their father, and it was Rhett's middle name.

"I'd like him to be called Xavier," Belle said.

"How sentimental of you!"

"No—not at all. It's my name—my father's name—and he would hate to give it to this mite. I'm doing it because I know he wouldn't approve."

"How appropriate!" Rhett laughed. "I'll give him my father's name, too. What an auspicious start for the child! Being named for the two people on the planet that would most hate to know of his existence."

Rhett took her to Atlanta, and set her up in a suite of rooms above a local saloon. He came to see her often, when he was in town, and it was during one of those visits that he found her eyes large and slightly mournful.

"I keep thinking about the boy," she said, with a crooked, deprecating grin. "I can't go to him, but you can—and must. Every so often—and make sure he is doing well."

"Belle! I am surprised at you!"

"So am I. But Lord! I can't help it. Something in my heart has changed and I can't take it back."

He made a visit several times a month, and always reported back that the boy was well, though, through the years, he became a sulky little creature, black-browed and sullen. He did not even smile at the presents that Rhett brought him, but broke them, or cast them aside, or crushed them under the heel of his little boot. Rhett had no great liking for him, and the child seemed to like him even less. There was always mutual relief when each took their leave of the other.

But Belle hung on his stories of the child, of his changes, his growth, and marveled at his doings, even when they were bad doings, for which he had been punished.

"What a card!" she laughed. "Why, he's so bad, Rhett. He's just like the both of us. I wonder what he'll be when he grows up?"

There was something tender in her, now, and it grew with each passing year that she was separated from her child. Rhett found that it dulled his ardor for her—he did not like tender, womanly females—and Belle was decidedly tender, underneath her brash, coarse exterior that grew brasher and coarser with time. But he still respected her, for she had made a success of her trade, and soon was so successful that she was universally reviled throughout Atlanta and its environs. She thrived on the disapproval. She played into it. Her voice became brash and loud and coarse and ungrammatical, whenever any of the sedate, easily-startled townsfolk was around to hear her speak. Her figure swelled pleasantly to greater proportions and her hair was redder than ever.

She stopped asking about the child, except for once, when she wondered if Rhett might have a portrait done of him. She did so want to see what he looked like. Rhett commissioned a miniature of the boy, which made him look sulkier than ever. But Belle stared at it for a long time, and then put it away in a drawer. She did not speak of him again after that. And neither did Rhett, who had never liked to speak of him at all. It had been many years since Belle had said the boy's name and he supposed that she must have forgotten about him, as he did, most of the time.

"What are you thinking of?" Belle asked him, setting down her book. Rhett smoked his cigar in silence.

"I was thinking of Bonnie," he said, finally, surprising himself, for he hadn't been thinking of her at all. It had been a long time since her name had crossed his lips and the word sounded strange and foreign to him, rusty with disuse. Bonnie—her black hair and blue eyes loomed before him and his heart twisted. How strange that he should have loved one of his children so completely and the other not at all! But then, he had loved Scarlett—and despite his admiration and respect for Belle, he had never loved her. Perhaps that is what made all the difference.

"I was thinking what a long time it is that she has been gone away from me. Longer than she was alive she has been dead and yet—I miss her more each day."

"Well, you never get over missing your child."

Her voice was even and without any especial poignance, but nonetheless there was something in it that made him sit up and look more closely at her. Her brow was smooth, her eyes were guarded and blank. But there was something soft and bittersweet around the corners of her mouth.

"Belle," he said, "Do you ever think of—"

"Every day," she said. "Every day—without fail."

END PART TWO


	21. Chapter 21

The sun was shining when they took their leave of New Orleans; the depressing drizzle of the past few days had let up and everything was so pretty and sparkling with droplets of rainwater that had not yet burned away in the sun. They caught the first of the pale, pearly morning light and flung spangles every where, and Ella looked wistfully behind as they rode out of town. The sky over the bayou was tinged pink and orange and to the whole scene was a mysterious, dreamlike, pleasant air. It had become familiar in these past days, this strange, foreign city; she was loath to leave it and set out to something that was wholly unknown. Ella drank it in with avid eyes. She felt a feeling akin to the one she had had upon leaving Atlanta. She felt, in the cockles of her heart, that she would never see this place again, and for some reason, the prospect saddened her.

But as they road out past Ponchartrain and through the plantation parishes, her spirits lifted. Everywhere were new sights and sounds and smells and it was good to be close to the land again instead of cooped up in the city. They passed plantation after plantation—large, grand houses, nothing like the burned out shells of buildings that Ella knew by heart from her youth in Clayton County. These plantations might not be as neat and clean around the edges as they had been in ante-bellum times, but they were whole and standing, and the fields were green with new plant life.

"How?" she wondered aloud, looking with awe at the houses and fields. "How did they come to be spared when so much of Georgia wasn't?"

Buck grinned.

"I guess Sherman liked Louisianans better than any other type of Southerners," he said, "Because he didn't take no great efforts to mess with them. It was enough to the Yankees to buckle their pride—and pride's worth more than anything else to a Louisianan. The Yankees buckled their pride so bad that they figured to leave them their homes and fields as a consolation prize."

Ella felt a pang. Tara, which had once been one of the most staid and prestigious plantations of Georgia, would look positively two-bit, like a one-horse farm, beside the sprawling splendor of these Louisianan palaces. Tara! Tara! Oh, funny how she hadn't thought about Tara the whole time she had been away from it until now. Funny, that she did not miss it more. She had once thought that the red dirt of that place ran in her veins; now she supposed she must be far more flesh and blood than she had supposed. To be away from it so long and not even miss it—not really!

But she was part-Irish and the granddaughter of a man who had started in this country as a farmer, when all of the pomp and circumstance was stripped from his position. She could not help gawking a little at the vast, well-tended fields. Tara produced cotton enough, and Ella had always looked with pride at the short, plump springing green plants, with their white treasures dangling from their branches. But those plants looked scrubby compared with the tall, leafy stalks and with the vines that scrambled and crawled over everything like kudzu. Cotton had to be cultivated; these plants looked wild, out of some forest primeval.

"What kind of crops do these people farm?" she wondered, her keen, country mind scanning the fields appraisingly.

"Sugar—and indigo," said Kin. "And tobacco, but we mostly leave that up to the folks in Virginia and the Carolinas. And some grow cotton—but not many, though the land is good for it."

"There's no better cotton land than the Georgia up-country," said Ella loyally, and Kin laughed as he spurred his horse on through the wide, shady road.

Ella had noticed how he said 'we' when referring to the Louisiana planter's class. She wondered why. Hadn't he been born in New Orleans? Did he have any ties to the planter class? But that did not seem possible. She did not know much of him but she knew that he was not a gentleman. A gentleman's son would never hire out as a cow-hand. But then, he did move with such an assured grace, and casual nonchalance, as if he considered himself in a higher strata than the others he walked among. He was a mystery, Ella thought. He was her husband, and she knew so little about him. Her husband! My goodness! She would never get over the shock of having an actual husband.

But it was not convenient to talk on the road, for they rode far apart, at times, with Buck in the front, Ella in the middle, and Kin respectfully—and with much difficulty, Ella thought—bringing up the rear. He looked as though it was hard for him to rein the horse in—he wanted to gallop.

As they moved north and west toward Texas, and the plantations and towns became fewer and farther between, he picked up his pace. The land was wide and flat and expansive and it seemed totally uninhabited. In other places it became marshy and they had to pick carefully through the bogs and swamp lowlands. Trees became scarcer, the closer to Texas they got, and the land was gently rolling. Then Kin did gallop, and Ella nudged Mr. Butler into a gallop, too, delighting in the feel of the wind on her face and hair.

They were headed for the Red River, to meet up with the rest of the drive, which was starting out from the Matagorda and heading north. It was five hundred miles from New Orleans to Red River Station, and would take two weeks to cover, moving at a fast clip. Red River! Ella did not know much about the place, but she knew it was where her destiny would begin. From Red River, she would go north, to find her mother.

Red River, Red River! She heard it in her own heartbeat, in the pounding of Mr. Butler's hooves. She laughed, because a snippet of an old song had come to her suddenly and she sang it out loud,

_From the valley they say you are leaving!_

_We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,_

_For they say you are taking the sunshine_

_That has brightened our path for a while._

Buck joined her in the chorus, his serviceable tenor bright and clear against the green grass and wide blue sky,

_Come and sit by my side if you love me_

_Do not hasten to bid me adieu_

_But remember the Red River Valley_

_And the one who has loved you so true!_

They did a lot of singing as a way to pass the time, since conversation was inconvenient and next to impossible. Old songs that Ella did not even remember that she knew until she found her voice joining in the words. New songs, that Kin and Buck knew, and taught to her. Ella was surprised to find that Kin had a nice singing voice, deep without having the burr of a bass, clear and high without matching Buck's bright tenor. Kin sang in the same way he seemed to do everything else—matter-of-factly, a little unwillingly, with complete and utter nonchalance. If anyone complimented him on his voice he went gruff and would not sing again for the rest of the day. But Buck sang with gusto, like_ he_ did everything else, and accepted compliments voraciously and appreciatively. If one was not offered, he tended to be grumpy, and he would not sing for the rest of the day, either.

He knew a lot of songs—"From hanging around sporting houses," he grinned, and Ella was surprised when he sang,

"_When first I saw sweet Peggy,  
'Twas on a market day…"  
_

Ella went on to surprise herself by joining in:

"_A low-back'd car she drove, and sat  
Upon a truss of hay."  
_

And together they went into the chorus:

_As she sat in the low-back'd car,__  
__The man at the turnpike bar__  
__Never ask'd for the toll,__  
__But just rubb'd his owld poll_

_"And looked after the low-back'd car!" Ella finished. "Buck, how do you know that song?"_

"Learned it at me mither's knee," he aped in a passable imitation of brogue. "How did you come to know it?"

"I don't know," Ella confessed. "I just do. My grandfather was Irish—peasant Irish, Rh—I mean, my stepfather—used to call him. But I believe he was a great, brave man."

"My own folks are Irish and none too wealthy themselves," said Buck affably. "Kin here is descended from the royalty of England and French nobility besides—everyone in Louisiana is descended from French nobility, Ella. But as for me, I wouldn't like to be anything but Irish."

"Neither would I," said Ella staunchly, forgetting that the Robillards had been enobled by the king of France in the days of Charlemagne.

"Crazy fools, the Irish," said Kin, and flashed them a broad grin.

In the gloaming hour between day and night; when it was precisely dusk, sometimes Kin and Buck would favor her with a 'cowboy' song. It was on a windswept, eerily yellow evening that she first heard a tune that was so mournful that it sent chills up and down her spine and made her heart ache. The two voices in harmony twined together like gold and silver threads, into a tapestry that was haunting in its beauty.

_Whoopee ti yi yo,  
Git along, little dogies,  
It's your misfortune  
And none of my own;  
_

_Whoopee ti yi yo,  
Git along, little dogies,  
You know that Wyoming  
Will be your new home._

"It's sad," Ella said, feeling a peculiar tug at the strings of her heart; she suddenly missed home, missed Tara, missed Atlanta and the kindly flutterings of Aunt Pitty, even missed Uncle Rhett and his stern, ill-humored ways. God's nightgown! She even missed Suellen and Sally, and that was saying something. And she missed her mother. Missed her in a visceral way that made her want to throw back her head and howl. All because of a song—a few notes strung together out loud.

"Most cowpoke songs are sad, honey," said Buck agreeably.

"But why?"

"Because so many cowboys are melancholy folks. They're up the trail and away from home for so many months out of the year that they can't be quite happy ever, not really."

"Why do they do it, then?"

"Because it's in their blood. Or because they're running away from something. Me, I can't go back to Dallas ever again because there's a whore there that would cut off my pecker and feed it to her flock of geese. That's what it's all about."

Ella slanted her eyes toward Kin, and saw his profile silhouetted against a sky that was blood-orange and purple with the setting of the sun. He had the face of a Roman emperor, a face that belonged on an old coin, she thought, or in one of those books that Uncle Ashley Wilkes used to read all the time. And she wondered, as she studied him, if cowboying was in his blood—or if he was running away from something, too.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One night around the campfire, when their dinner of tinned pork and beans had been duly warmed and eaten, they all sang 'Lorena,' Ella's song, for she was called Ella Lorena after it. By the time they had finished, Buck was weeping openly.

"Why, that song always gets to me," he said apologetically. "My first whore was called Lorena. She was a pretty, yaller-haired thing like me. She always wanted to go to San Francisco—I wonder if she ever made it there."

Ella would never get used to the way Buck talked about whores. She had lived sixteen years in a world where that word was never uttered, not even by the coarsest men. And now, it was talked over casually. It was obvious that Buck himself was well-acquainted with the ins and outs of sporting houses. Ella wondered if all men were and just didn't say.

"Did you—Have you ever," she asked Kin, hesitant and stumbling, "Have you ever been in a—a sporting house?"

Kin was silent and poked at the fire with a stick. "I reckon I have," he said, finally, "Seeing as how I was born in one."

Ella's mouth fell open with shock. Did he mean—that his mother had been—a bad woman? Oh, how dreadful! He was the son of a bad woman and she, who had married him, was the bad woman's daughter in law. Oh, how many things she did not know about him, the man she had married! And any of them might be as bad as this. She resolved not to ask any more questions, and closed her mouth with a snap. It was better not knowing.

But Kin did not seem at all perturbed. He merely smiled, and then whistled another verse of Lorena, as the fire blazed and burned, and the sparks flew upward.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After that, Kin took to calling Ella 'Lorie.'

"Ella doesn't suit you," he said. "It's a prissy name and you're not prissy. Lorie is much better. 'Ella' is a girl who wants to be a lady—who does crewelwork and lowers her eyes in the presence of men-folk. Any girl that rides as good as you shouldn't be called Ella—no, you're Lorie, through and through. You're not a lady."

It was one of the few really nice things he ever said to her, and Ella took it to heart. Oh, he wasn't mean to her! But he so rarely said anything about her character that when he gave her any kind word or compliment she treasured it, and eagerly endeavored to make him give her another. She knew that she wanted to please him—but her brain had never turned itself to the matter of why she should want to do it. She only _did_.

And if he thought she were a good rider, she would ride all day and not say a word in complaint, though at night her legs and back ached so much that, in the privacy of her tent, she could not help crying a little into her bedroll. The sun, which had been so pleasant when they left New Orleans, was now a menace to her—it beat down so unmercilessly all day until she felt as though she would melt or scream in frustration. Her horse's rollicking gait, which had seemed so easy and gentle in the paddock when she had first rode him, now was brutal and jounced her so much that she felt the movement of the horse even in her sleep.

The change that had come over her after a week on the road was startling, but not unpleasant. Despite the protection of her hat her skin had been tanned and freckles began to come out on her nose and cheeks. Dilcey would have been horrified by them, but they gave Ella's small face a character that was heretofore lacking in her soft, pliable features. Her hair, which she wore in a long braid down her back, had been reddened by the sun so that it gleamed. Her eyes were more alert in the wide open than they had been in town. If Ella had had a mirror, she might have been pleased to see the change that had come over her features, but she had no mirror and she did not notice the things that the other did—Buck, appreciatively, and Kin, from behind guarded, veiled eyes.

She only knew that her legs ached, her shoulders, the small of her back, her arms, from gripping the reins all day long. Her hands were calloused despite her gloves, and they ached, too. She thought back longingly to the bath she had had in New Orleans. If only she could soak in a bath, now! She wiggled her aching toes and cursed the lack of bathtubs along their route.

Not only did she ache but she felt positively grimy. She washed her face and hands from her canteen every night, but the dust that they kicked up every day seemed to have settled over every part of her body, permeating her clothes. At times she even tasted dust and she suspected her lungs must be coated with it as well. A bath! A bath! My kingdom for a bath, Ella thought.

One night they camped by a little stream and after the men had unrolled their bedrolls and gone to sleep by the fire, Ella slipped out of her tent and headed stealthily toward the watering hole.

There was a full moon, and it cast a weird light that was almost as bright as the light of day. Ella laughed to herself as she slipped out of her shirt and her dungarees, standing only in her combination. What a bright moon! She was glad there was no one around to see her, for they surely could have, in the light of such a silvery moon.

She hesitated a bit before slipping out of her shimmy and casting it aside. She covered her nakedness with her arms and laughed again. Well, she wanted a bath, and whoever heard of taking a bath with your underwear on? And there was no one around to see. The glow of the campfire seemed far away and she could faintly hear Buck's snores emanating from that direction.

The water was cold, so cold that it brought tears to her eyes but she waded in and noticed deliciously how her aching muscles were soothed by it. She felt so clear and nice as she submerged herself and came up again, spluttering. All the grime and dust of the past week was washed away and she felt so nice and clean that she could not help splashing about a bit in the shallows of the sluggish black river

"Get up—and get out of there, now."

Ella started, jumping about a foot in the air at the unexpected sound of a voice. She scrambled up the muddy bank and gathered up her chemise, holding it to her chest. Her heart pounded, and she thought of her pistol, back in her tent. Oh, how terrible! The bright silvery moon had gone behind a cloud and she could not tell who it was that stood before her in the inky blackness. She opened her mouth to scream—but would they hear her if she did?

"Don't scream. It's me."

"Kin! How dare you frighten me like that?"

"_That_ frightens you? I should think you should be more frightened to go for a midnight swim in the pitch darkness. Do you even know how to swim? Suppose you had been taken away by a current? It's been storming all day up the river and flash flooding could happen any moment."

Far away, on the horizon line to the north, Ella saw faint streaks of lightning and heard the muffled roll of thunder. She hadn't noticed it before. To his upbraiding she could only say, rather lamely,

"I can swim. Uncle Will taught me how in the Flint back home."

She was suddenly conscious that she was naked; the moon came back and in the half-light she saw Kin's eyes stop on her bare form for a second before politely looking away. She pulled her shirt and pants on, not bothering with the chemise, glad it was dark so he could not see that her face was burning with embarrassment.

"Well, you've never swam in a river like this. These Louisiana rivers are half-bayou. There's water moccasins—and dark vines under the surface that can pull you down. Not to mention alligators."

"Alligators!" she scoffed, wrinkling her nose at his joke.

Kin bent and picked up a stick from the ground and tossed it into the water. Two or three dark objects, which Ella had surmised to be sunken logs, lowered beneath the surface with bubbling aplomb. She could see them move away, dark shapes on darker water, and felt slightly sick.

"I only wanted a bath," she said in a small voice.

"Sometimes I think you only use about half your brain, Ella," he said, and she cringed, for he had not called her Lorie this time, and the effect was not lost on her. A long silence stretched between them.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, hanging her head, ashamed. Tears threatened, but she would not let them come. "I guess I have a lot to learn."

Something in his face had softened, and he said, "It's all right. You do have a lot to learn, but you _will _learn, and that's what important. The next time you want a swim, tell me or Buck and we'll scout about for a safe place. Now come along back to your tent."

She gathered her shimmy and went with him. He started to put his arm around her in a companionable way, to show that there were no hard feelings, but stopped, remembering that only a moment before she had been completely unclothed. She might resent the familiarity after that. He looked away as he thought of the brief glimpse he had had of her slender white form and then moved away from her, opening the distance between them instead of closing it as he had previously intended.

Ella, too, was thinking of the way his eyes had lingered on her for a split second before he turned away. Oh, how embarrassing for him to see her body that way—but then, Ella was conscious that she had a very nice body, and she had seen in his eyes before he turned that she thought so, too. She wondered why she did not mind about that more. But she didn't.

"I guess Kin is right," she thought, as she snuggled into her bedroll, feeling nice and clean and sleepy, now. "I'm not a lady. Any of the old Atlanta cats would have screamed and then fainted and drowned in being caught in such a position. But I didn't—and wouldn't dream of doing such a fool thing. I can take whatever is thrown at me and then some."

She was still so very young and she had not yet learned that it was possible to be a lady and resilient at the same time. The society in which she had been raised still put a high premium on feminine vulnerability and helplessness. Ella had tried to cultivate these things without realizing or knowing why. But it was not who she was. For many years there had lay dormant in her an untested strength, a determination as strong and unbreakable as steel, a willful perseverance. Now it was coming to the forefront and the old, womanly ways were dropping away. She was becoming the kind of woman on whom the future of the great nation would be based: flexible, adaptable, strong, courageous.

Ella did not know any of these things. She only knew that she had done and said and seen so many things in the past few days that she could never really be able to call herself a lady, like Mrs. Picard and Mrs. Wellburn were, like Aunt Melly had been. And her mother. For surely her mother had been a great lady. And now she, Ella, would never be.

"Oh, I hope Mother won't mind," she thought drowsily, and then she fell asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

The next day, they crossed into Texas. There was no sign or boundary to mark the spot and Ella hardly knew where the Louisiana rolling hills ended and the Texas hills started. But Buck seemed to know. He sat up straighter and sniffed the air appreciatively.

"Texas born and Texas bred!" He crowed, "And when I die I'll be Texas dead! God'lmighty, it's good to be home."

Texas was no different from Louisiana, Ella thought, and wondered what Buck was going on about. She saw pine-covered hills, cypress swamps, and, with wonder, she noted here and there the curving furrows of a field of springing green cotton.

"Why, it's exactly like home," she said, a little disappointed. About half the time they had been on the road had been spent with Buck telling her about how _different_ Texas was from any other place in the country—aye, any other place in the world!—about how strange it was, about the mountains and the deserts and the vast wide plains.

"This looks like Georgia," she said, surveying the cotton fields, the scrub pines, and here and there, the occasional rice paddy. "Or worse yet—South Carolina."

"Well, _this_ ain't isn't Texas," said Buck sulkily. "Not really. These folks think they're Southerners. They grow rice and they grow cotton and they've got precious little gumption to back them up. Southerners, down to the last man."

"Well, what are they in the rest of the state, if not Southerners?"

"They're Texans," and then he let loose with a loud noise that was half-way between a Rebel yell and a Comanche war cry.

Before the day was half passed they began to see tall iron pyramids in the otherwise empty country, dozens of towers, reaching for the sky, surrounded by rough-hewn roads and lumber shacks. Men who appeared no bigger than ants were dashing to and fro between the iron towers. To Ella, the landscape was as alien as the moon.

"That's our other crop," Buck pointed out, as they drew rein so that Ella could stare.

"What are they doing?" she wondered. "Crop? What is it that are they farming?"

"Oil," said Kin laconically. "They're oil wells, Ella. Those men are drilling for oil."

"But I didn't…" she trailed off, feeling foolish. She had been about to say that she didn't know that oil came from anywhere, much less the ground. Of course, she knew it must come from somewhere. Aunt Suellen had an oil lamp and something must be put it in to make it burn. Kin spoke again to cover her fluster.

"Why, there are more oil-made millionaires in Texas than in any other part of the world. People go from poor to rich overnight because they find a rich geyser of the stuff bubbling out from the ground one day. From rags to riches—and all because they happened to be in the right place at the right time."

Her eyes lit up at the thought of it. How lovely to go to bed one night and to wake up in the morning a millionaire—many times over!

That night they made camp just outside of Nacogdoches and once the campfire had been kindled and dinner eater, Buck rose to his feet with pretended nonchalance.

"I do believe I'll go in to town for a spell," stretching with mock indifference, looking slyly at them from the corner of his eye. "I could use a drink or two or three."

"Can't you drink here as well as anywhere else?" Ella wondered, knowing full well that there was a bottle of whisky secreted in each of Buck's saddlebags.

"No, no," he said hastily. "It's just that…"

Ella looked up at him.

"Well—anyway, I'll be going," he finished lamely.

He had no sooner gone out of sight that Ella realized the true purpose of his visit and laughed out loud. How terrible he was, but how fond she was of him. He was like an overgrown boy, despite his tanned, lined face, and his fearsome moustache. He had never really grown up and she liked him for it.

"He's gone sporting," she said, and surprised herself with the casual way she was able to speak of it. "Why, I do believe that Buck thinks of bad women and nothing else."

"You've just about hit the nail on the head," Kin remarked. "Occasionally he does think of eating—or drinking. Well, we won't see him until morning and he'll be of no use at all tomorrow. Half-sleeping in his saddle and cursing everything that moves. We won't wait up. Look at the stars, Ella. Have you ever seen anything like them?"

Buck had said that everything was bigger in Texas, but Ella did not believe him until now. The stars seemed brighter and closer here that they did anywhere else. They were like diamonds scattered across a length of dark blue velvet. Ella had not often seen diamonds but her mother had a diamond ring that had flashed and gleamed. She could make out the Milky Way, as light and gossamer as fine silk, and, shining through it all, Polaris, that bright beacon of the night.

"The north star," she murmured. If she were ever lost she was to follow it—north—toward mother—toward freedom.

"We'll start north tomorrow," Kin said lazily, leaning his own head back to survey the heavens. West toward Palestine and from there due north to the Red. It should take about a week—maybe less, if Buck keeps his sporting to a bare minimum."

A week! Only a week more before the real journey began! She had waited so long for it and now it was almost here. Only one week more and then who knew how long until she found Scarlett? It could be days, or weeks, or months. Oh, no, not months. She was sure it would not take that long. A few weeks, at the very utmost.

"I won't think about that now," she murmured. "I'll think about it tomorrow. I don't have to think about it now."

In fact, it was getting to be very difficult to think about it now, because she had something else to think about. Ella had just realized that, for the first time since their wedding night, she and Kin were alone together. Somehow, his arm had snaked its way around her shoulders and she had leaned her head back against his shoulder to look up at the sky. She hadn't noticed when he'd put his arm there, but she became very aware of it now; could feel the lean hard muscles rippling through his shirtsleeve when he moved. His wrist was brushing against the tender skin on the back of her neck and a little chill came over her so that she shivered. They were alone. Supposed he wanted to—do things? Suppose he expected them? He had said, in New Orleans, that he did not intend to bother her about—about—well, about that. But he was looking at her so kindly now, almost tenderly, and his mouth was turned up at the corners underneath his days'-worth growth of beard.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, pulling the corner of his mouth down. "I'm not going to force myself on you—even though any red-blooded man would want to. I like to think I've got a little self-control. My, you Southern girls! You're always expecting a man to try and take liberties—and I think, a little upset when a man doesn't."

She was glad he had said it for now she could pull away and jump to her feet, indignant.

"I think you are a cad," she told him, bristling. "You said we'd never speak of such things and here you are bringing them up. And I—I'm not upset—at _all_."

"I haven't brought them up," Kin said, and Ella could see that her pique had only made him more amused. "You did, even though you didn't say so—your wear your thoughts on your face like Buck wears his heart on his sleeve. Don't ever play cards, Ella. And as for what we agreed—well, we only agreed we wouldn't do those things. There was never anything said about speaking of them. Why shouldn't we speak of them to our heart's content? We are, after all, a married couple."

"Oh!" she stamped her foot. "I'd just have soon as married a skunk!" How wrong she had been to think that he was—that he ever could have been—a gentleman, or even a nice sort of person.

"My, my, a little pot is soon hot," he mocked her, infuriatingly, and Ella did not know what to say. The peace of the evening had been spoiled for her. The stars might be actual diamonds and she would not care. She stormed off to her tent and slapped the flap closed behind her, wishing it was a door so she could slam it—and revel in the slam.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ella was running—running down a strange, dim street. It was so dark—the dark pressed in on her, threatened to overwhelm her. Rough-hewn buildings rose at sharp and tilting angles on all sides, bleak storefronts and empty windows, which looked like the glazed, dead eyes of an animal. If only she could get where she was going! If only the low, terrible moon was not so near and bright and fearsome. If only she could find help—help!

"Help! Oh, help!"

She was conscious of someone lifting her up—the dreamscape dimmed and disappeared—and with some difficulty, Ella came back to herself and opened her eyes, to find that it was Kin who was cradling her, who was holding her thrashing arms. Her face was wet with beads of sweat and in her eyes was a wild, frightened look.

"Hush now—hush," he told her. All of his mocking and his insouciance were gone now and he was tender and soothed her as if she were a child. She remembered Aunt Suellen soothing Little Will this way, when he had had the colic as a small boy. The thought the mothering gesture made her sob weakly, for she still labored under the lingering terror of her dream. She clutched his shirt and buried her face in it.

"Oh—such a terrible dream—a nightmare—I didn't know—I was trying to…"

"Hush, now. What did you dream?"

"It was awful. I dreamt I was running—somewhere strange, and things were looming all around me. It was dark—so dark—and I needed help—but I didn't know why. And I didn't know where to go, or what to do. It was so frightening, Kin. It's the second time I've had that dream and I hate it. I don't want to ever have it again."

"It's only a dream. It can't hurt you."

"But in it, I feel like I am going to die, I'm running so fast and I can't breathe. And Pork always used to say that if you die in your dream you _really_ die, in real life. I don't want to die." Not before I find my mother! she thought in a panic.

"That is old slave logic—pure superstition. Nothing in a dream can hurt you."

"Do you think I'll ever dream that I find help—that I find what I am looking for?"

"No. But I do think that if you ever really need help—why, I'll be right there. And if not me, than Buck. And Buck's a straight enough shot when he needs to be. But you needn't worry about that, because I always will be there when you need me."

Her heart raced and she cried, holding on to him, her tears wetting his shirt. It had been such a frightening dream and she did not want to go back to sleep unless she should dream it all over again.

"Won't you stay here with me?" she questioned, her eyes large and pitiful.

"My very dear Mrs. Kinnicut! Have you reversed your earlier position and decided to welcome me in your bed after all?" His lip curled and Ella suddenly sat up straighter, angry to her fingertips. She was frightened and he would make his joke, and deliberately misunderstand things. She wished he would go away—to—to Halifax!

"You can make your bed in Arkansas for all I care!" she cried, and pushed him out of the tent. He fell backwards through the flap-doors, laughing so that her blood boiled. In her anger, she had forgotten to be afraid, and Kin smiled as he saw all traces of fear wiped from her face. She lay back down on her pallet with a heart that was racing from anger and annoyance, instead of terror. What a beast he was!

Still, she did not protest when she heard him drag his bedroll nearer, and, peeking out through the tent flap, saw him lie down on it a few yards away. In a little while his deep, regular breathing reached her ears.

Ella, who had thought she could sleep no more that night after such a terrible dream, felt sleep overtake her again. Oh, yes—he was a cad and a beast and not very nice, at times, but it would be easier for her to sleep if he was near. She was not afraid anymore—not now that he was near—and as she drifted off she felt peaceful and safe. In her drowsy state she heard the long, thin wail of an animal—it was a coyote, lifting its nose to the moon. But Ella did not know that. She only knew she felt safe now. Kin would not let anything get her—he would make sure she was safe.

The thought soothed her, and she did not dream any more that night.


	23. Chapter 23

On the very same day that Ella and Kin and Buck were starting their way north to the Red River, Rhett Butler was enjoying breakfast in his suite of rooms at the Atlanta Hotel. Well, not enjoying it, exactly. He took no pleasure in the feast that was spread before him, in the hot coffee in his mug, in his new, clean linen suit, in the paper that was spread across his lap, unread. He was not thinking of anything at all, except that he was staring out of the window and wondering how he would spend the day.

He laughed suddenly; it was a harsh sound. Once there had scarcely been enough hours in the day to fill with drinking, gambling, sporting, and all manner of other unsavory, yet equally exciting, enticements. He had enough money to gamble but not the spirit; he was too weary and tired for sporting. And, he found, he could drink as well alone as he could in a barroom.

He missed coming home to a real home: a house, albeit an architechtural monstrosity of a house, it would be better than this dark, depressing hotel. Lights blazing in the windows—a little black head peeping up and the sound of feet pattering to the door to welcome him with an indignant, "Daddy, where you been?"

And then the other children, their voices rising over each other in an attempt to be heard, even little, shy, stammering Wade. The low rumble of the negroes quarreling in the kitchen. The light, pleasing, quick up-country tones of a wife who was just as eager as the babies to tell over her day's worth of joys, triumphs, cheats and jokes.

"Uncle Rhett, after supper might I go and play with Beau and Raoul and Joe Whiting in the vacant lot? We're going to have a bonfire, not too big, but I shouldn't want to miss it."

"Look at my new slippers, Uncle Rhett! Aunt Melly got them for me—aren't they sweet? See the buckles? Real rhinestones, like Mother's shoes!"

"Daddy, where you been? Don't stay away so long tomorrow."

"Rhett, did I tell you about that horrid Johnnie Gallegher's new tricks? Today I caught him red-handed and he had the nerve to…"

Rhett no longer had his work to occupy him, and he had realized that he could not take up so much of Belle's time. She had a business to attend to, and, even if she hadn't, some of her charms had been lost for him since he had mentioned—well, since he had mentioned the boy. He felt uncomfortable around her now. He felt as though she were waiting—waiting—for him to mention the boy again and that she was irked and depressed when he didn't.

It had been many years since Belle had seen him, and even since Rhett had laid his eyes upon him. He had been a young man, then, just out of school. That had been Rhett's reason for the visit—to cajole or threaten the young fellow to go back. But his mind had been made up.

"I won't go back to that place," he had said, eyes flashing at his father over the table. If ever Rhett had doubted the boy's paternity, he admitted he could not now. The black brows, the quick flashes of anger and violence in his face! There was a glass of whisky in front of each man, and Rhett sipped his, noting how the boy lifted his own glass and bolted the contents. He was not old enough to drink, but the movement of his wrist was fluid and rote, and it seemed that he had had a lot of practice in doing it. Rhett grinned, finally feeling something like kinship with the boy.

"What will you do?" he wondered lazily, bolting his own glass just to show the family resemblance.

"I reckon that's my own business."

"You are right. It is your business, and not mine. I only ask out of curiosity."

"Then I won't answer," said the boy. "Damn your curiosity."

Rhett realized that it was pointless to argue, and rose, ready to go. He did not intend to spend his whole time in New Orleans trying to convince this sulky creature to go back to the nuns at Ursiline. Rhett did not blame him. He had no great fondness for nuns himself.

"I'd like to go to Atlanta," the boy said, and he suddenly seemed very young again. "Just for a visit. Just to see my mother."

"But you can't do that. It would be impossible for you to see her. She isn't received. And you can't go to her."

"Well, I guess I've been inside a whorehouse before."

Rhett felt another stirring—of something, almost akin to admiration. He quashed it, and pulled his lip down, and then back up, when he saw that the boy was doing the same.

He laid a pile of bills on the table and pushed them to the boy.

"I wish you good luck in all your endeavors." He rose and went out—in a moment, he heard the boy following him.

Rhett had stopped on the street and light a cigar, from the corner of his eye he saw the boy lean down in front of one of the city's myriad beggars and press something into the dilapidated black man's hand. The money—the money that Rhett had just given him.

"Bress Gawd!" the Negro cried, astounded at the wealth he suddenly held. The boy looked up and his eyes met Rhett's. Rhett shrugged. It was one of the only times that his money had ever been put to any good.

The two men looked at each other for a moment longer, and then the boy disappeared in the crowd. Rhett had never seen him again, and he felt a momentary pang at the memory of that moment. It was difficult to explain his absence to Belle, who worried about him, and who obviously blamed Rhett for letting him get away. Of course, she never henpecked him about it. But she was slow and sad more often out of that, and her ears were pricked up, always, as though she were listening for footfalls that would never come.

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Rhett poured himself another cup of coffee from the silver urn, and as he was doing so there was a knock on the door that startled him so that he cursed. He had split a little of the dark liquid on his trousers and called, "Entré " in an annoyed voice, as he mopped the mess up.

He expected that it would be Apollo, his body servant, but stood in shock as Suellen O'Hara Benteen came through the door. She was dressed in her pitiful, worn best dress and wearing a bonnet that was sadly out of date. Rhett wondered what she had come to nag him about. Suellen never left Tara unless it were a matter of life and death—and even then, she did not always come. She had not even come to town or even wired him the time that Wade Hampton had had the typhoid and had been near to dying from it.

"Suellen!" he said testily, wide a quick flash of teeth in his dark face that could not, under any circumstances, be mistaken as a smile. "What a lovely turn of events, to bring you to town to see me. It is a lucky man who attains his heart's desire."

"You leave that door open," she cried, jumping away from him. "I don't want people to talk." She bristled, and he could see the effect that they had on one another. Well, whatever loneliness he might have been dreading in that day, he preferred it vastly to the company of Suellen O'Hara. He adopted a vacant smile and tilted his head in a pretence of listening to her, but his eyes flashed and told her to make her business quick.

She did not seem to relish spending time with him any more that he with her, and did not couch her inquiry in questions about his health and welfare.

"Where is Ella?" she cried, and Rhett pulled the corner of his lip down in some surprise. He had not expected this from her. Why, who gave a whit where the girl was? Safe at Peachtree street this very minute. Had Suellen so little sense that she had not thought to telegram Miss Pittypat and find her out?

"She isn't with Pitty. I—I sent a wire. The old lady hasn't seen her in weeks. Joe Fontaine told me he drove her to catch the train to Atlanta—but that was nearly three weeks ago now. Oh, Rhett, where is she?" There was panic evident in every line on Suellen's face, every move of her body.

"I never knew you to care so much about Ella before," he growled, to cover the own feeling of concern that was rising in him. "Afraid that the money will stop coming if she isn't there?"

"It isn't about money!" Suellen said indignantly.

"Oh, really, my dear Mrs. Benteen?"

"No. I—I admit that I—well, perhaps I'm not as nice to Ella as I should be."

"Indeed?"

"Oh, _you_! Well, she is, after all, my own sister's child, isn't she? And I'm responsible for her. People will talk something dreadfully if they think I've let her go gallivanting around the state unchaperoned."

Rhett grinned, a quick, malicious grin. This was more like the silly, self-serving Suellen he remembered. Suellen who had all but killed her father—Suellen, who had worked and nagged Will Benteen into an early grave—Suellen, who had married her daughter to George MacIntosh, old enough to be the girl's grandfather, with the hopes of getting her paws on his money. What a joke that she hadn't! Rhett wondered how Suellen had gone so long without telling Ella the truth about her mother.

"I should think," he said cruelly, "That you, of all people, should be used to a little gossip by now. There's been enough of it about your family—and you have played your part. What's a little clucking about your dereliction of your guardian duties?"

"Oh, you're horrible! It isn't only that."

"No?"

"No. I—well, I won't deny that—that I'm a little worried about the girl."

Her hands in their worn gloves twisted the handle of her reticule, and Rhett thawed a degree or two. Suellen was a crass, base creature and would sell her own pa down the river for a dime and two quarters, but she appeared to be genuinely worried about the girl. The Irish, he thought. The Irish are the clannest people alive, and Suellen was as much Irish as Scarlett had been.

"I wouldn't worry, Sue," he said comfortingly, patting her hand. "If she's not with you and not at Miss Pittypat's then she's probably staying with friends."

"Friends! Rhett, Ella doesn't have any friends."

Rhett felt a flicker of annoyance underneath his desire to be helpful. Suellen always underestimated the girl, was so quick to think her less than she actually was. Why, she was a pretty, spirited thing—but Rhett knew Suellen was right. Ella didn't have many friends, and that was partly his fault, for keeping her tucked away at Tara year after year. He should have let her come to town more often—or even let her have a season in Charleston. He imagined what a stir she would make at the St. Cecilia ball, with her creamy skin and her auburn locks. Yes—next winter, he would take her to Charleston for the balls. Oh, it would cause a rippling, because the stories of Scarlett O'Hara had spread to Charleston just as they had spread like wildfire through Atlanta. But Scarlett had been gone for so long and Ella was charming in her own right. He remembered how pretty and sweet she had looked the last time he had seen her, when she had bristled at him and spat like a green-eyed cat and questioned him about her mother…

Rhett swore and moved viciously to his desk where he rifled through the papers that the bank had sent over. They had not consigned them to the bin as he had directed but delivered them, contracts and telegrams and all, to Rhett's room at the hotel. Telegrams—the man had said something about a telegram. And here, in the midst of the sheaf, it was.

It was unmistakably from Ella, though she had been very cryptic for some reason and only signed it with her initials—E.L.K.

I AM SAFE AND WELL STOP PLENTY OF MONEY STOP DO NOT TRY TO FIND ME

Rhett cursed again as he thought back to the last words she had spoken to him.

"_I'm going to Hell," Ella said, her voice clear and startlingly cold. "I expect I'll see you there, too, one of these days."_

"Oh, good Christ," he groaned and Suellen cried, "What? What?" as nervous and clucking as a mother hen.

Rhett sat down and balled the paper in his hand, wishing it were the girl's throat. He'd like to slap her for being so foolish. Ella had always been a docile enough child, eager to please, wary of disobeying her elders. But there had been something in her eyes that he had been a fool not to see. He thought suddenly of another pair of green eyes cold and hard and determined above a green velvet dress. Oh, Ella, he thought, pressing a hand to his temples, damn you. Damn Scarlett. Damn me for not realizing sooner.

"What is it?" cried Suellen frightened, and Rhett sighed, and cursed once more—cursed himself this time.

"She's gone to find her mother," he said, suddenly more tired than he had ever been in his life. "She's gone to New Orleans to find Scarlett."


	24. Chapter 24

It was raining when they came to the Red River, and for the first time Ella was decidedly grateful for her Stetson. The water streamed off from the brim of her hat in rivulets, and her slicker was plastered to her damp skin, but other than that she guessed she could call herself dry. But all the same, she shivered. It was a cold, chilling rain. The April sun seemed a thing of the past, and when it did come out from behind a cloud and made a sunshower, she exclaimed,

"Why, the devil's beating his wife! That's what Dilcey always said, when the sun shone through a rainstorm."

Buck was enamored of the phrase and repeated it over and over to himself delightedly as they rode on.

"Think of the devil with a wife!" he chortled. "Poor man. I never felt any sympathy with the devil until now. And imagine what kind of lady would marry the devil. Why, I guess she ain't a lady after all, and I don't blame him for wearing her out."

But even Buck's antics had lost most of their humor by the time they reached the trail-head. Ella was cold to the bone and her teeth chattered and she shook so that she could barely keep steady as she took hold of Captain Lexington's hand and greeted him.

He was an interesting figure, she could not help thinking, as the two regarded each other curiously. Ella had never seen an army captain before. Captain Lexington had never seen a lady. It was an edifying experience for the both of them.

He was tall and lank and a permanent shade of brown from his constant forays in the sun and wind. He's darker than Pork, thought Ella. She had never seen a white man so brown. She had also never seen a white man with half a leg, sitting atop a horse. But she supposed one and a half legs was good enough for a man like Captain Lexington, though most other men had two. She could see already that there was a steely resolve in this man, and knew instinctually that he would tolerate no nonsense—no, not even from her. She would not be able to get away with any of her feminine flutterings around him.

His eyes were cool but kind and he was cordial, if not warm.

"Welcome to our gang, Mrs. K," he said. "I'll tell you right off, I weren't enamored of the idea of bring along a female on our drive. I still ain't. But you 'pear to be a right pert little gal, and Kin advises me you can hold your seat, and I ain't so old as that I can't take changing my mind about things every now and then. I don't like having my mind change but I won't mind having it changed in this respect. As long as you sit tight and don't cause no fuss, and don't give any feminine squalling, I 'spect we'll get along fine."

"I do hope so," Ella told him, and she meant it. She wanted to win this man's approval because she could tell at a glance that he did not bestow it on just anyone. Although she could tell right away that he did respect Kin—he flicked his eyes toward Buck with barely concealed impatience, but to Kin he put up one brown paw and touched the brim of his hat. Ella thought that maybe if Captain Lexington didn't respect Kin so much she might not have been allowed along on the drive. She made a further resolve to be helpful and uncomplaining and to tote more than her fair share of the load so she would not disgrace either of the two men.

The Captain smiled—it was a rusty gesture, and Ella thought that he must not smile very often. It looked as though it would crack his brown, raisin-face. But it was pleasant, so she smiled, too.

"Forgive me for saying it, but you look a bit chilled. If you wanted to go inside Franklin's store over there and set a while by the fire it won't be holding us back none. We got the last of our remuda at the blacksmith's getting shoes. I guess we'll wait until it's dried a bit before setting off."

"What is the matter?" Kin asked her, noticing that she had slumped a bit in her saddle and was looking around at the drear landscape with a bit of a bemused and disappointed air.

"It's just that—where's the cattle?" she wondered, and the men laughed. Ella flushed with indignation and embarrassment. It wasn't a silly question! She had been told there would be a lot of cattle on this drive—three thousand of them! But she didn't see even one!

"They're up at the crossing," explained the captain kindly. "Got some boys waiting for us there. Guess they're a little wet. Well, I must see to the remuda. Kin, why don't you take your wife in and get her dry and introduce her to the other boys? Aloysius, you can come with me."

The two set off. Kin dismounted and threw his reins over the hitching post. Ella followed suit, and went with him into the store.

It was nothing like her mother's store in Atlanta. Everything was clean and nice there, and furniture was stacked neatly among bolts of cloth and seeds and lamps and china knick-knacks. This store was made from rough-hewn boards and there did not seem to be anything for sale that did not have to do with horses—feeding them, branding them, or outfitting them. The only similarity of this store to Kennedy's in Atlanta was the iron stove in the back, around which a group of men huddled lazily Occasionally there was a spurt of laughter or a stream of tobacco juice, aimed for one of the spittoons and missing.

Oh, but even in their laziness, what an air of happening hung all around them! They were a fine bunch of fellows, all tan and muscled and languid, but there was a quick alertness in their eyes and their ears seemed pricked up. Ella saw more than a few pistols stuck into belts for easy access. She would come to learn that even the laziest of the men in their deadest deep sleep, could have that pistol out and at the ready in the time it took to blink an eye.

"Hey, Kin!" One cowboy took notice of the arrival and the cry went up, and then someone said, "What in the dern…?" and all of a sudden every man stood more alert, and there were a dozen hats suddenly in a dozen grimy hands, a dozen heads turned in her direction—and a dozen pairs of eyes fixed in curiosity on her.

"Hello, boys," said Kin easily, and Ella could already see that he was not like the rest of them. He stood apart, though he walked among them. There was a certain distinction in his bearing, and a certain respectful silence that they afforded him that showed her that the other men were afraid of him—or if not afraid, that they would listen to him, in a way that they would not listen to each other. Right now she could see the wheels turning in their heads—they wanted to ask about her presence, but they wondered if they should. Finally, one cowboy with shockingly red hair and a moustache to match stepped forward.

"Look here," he said, "What gives?"

"Boys, I'd like you to meet my wife," said Kin, and a dozen jaws gaped and then snapped shut. Ella stepped forward a little blushingly.

A dozen eyes raked over her and turned back to Kin. The red-haired man seemed a nice sort, and he broke the silence.

"Look here," he said, "I'm Walter Wheeler. The boys here call me Looky."

Ella could not help a peal of laughter. "Looky! What a funny name!"

She thought then that she probably should not have said it. What if he took offense at her making fun of his name? But it was a funny name, and the red-haired man did not seem affronted. He only grinned affably.

"Look here," he said, "I don't know why these boys give me that dern name. But it's what they call me. You can call me Looky if you like."

"You can call me Ella," she said. "I'm so pleased to meet you—all of you."

She touched her hand to the brim of her hat as she had seen the captain do, and Kin's eyes danced.

"You can call her Mrs. Kinnicut," he said, good-naturedly enough, but there was a ring of no-nonsense in his tone. "Where are your manners, gentlemen? Come and introduce yourselves to my bride."

And all the men clustered around her, eager to make her acquaintance, and they shook her hand and a few even gave her friendly kisses on the cheek. Ella was startled, but as the voices rose to give their names and exclaim over her pretty curls and her pink cheeks and her little hands, she began to relax. They were not gentlemen of the kind that she had ever known but they were charming and courtly in their own way, and Ella began to enjoy being the center of such open and sincere admiration. Why, this is what it must be like to be a belle, She thought No wonder her mother had enjoyed it so much! Why, it was fun!

All of the men had proper names like John or Gene, but other names, too. Just as Aloysius was Buck, and Walter was Looky, so was there a Thomas called Tiny (a humongous Negro man who did not seem deferential in the least bit to his white pardners—Ella had never seen such a self-assured negro before). There was a Louis called Lank (and he _was _such a long, lank creature, almost stooped over and curled into himself) and a man named Wallace who was called Red. For no apparent reason—there was nothing Red about him except the very tip of his nose which, Ella would learn, always crimsoned in cold wet weather. Everywhere else he was pale and colorless.

Oh, _all_ of them had such funny names! In addition to Looky and Tiny and Lank and Red there was Flip and Little Joe and Boots and even a man that they called Cake! His real name was Bill or Bob or something—but he that name had been ever lost to the sands of time when he asked a whore in Ogallala to bake for him instead of—instead of—the men looked at each other uneasily and then looked at Kin's blank face, wondering if they should go on.

"Instead of sporting?" asked Ella impishly and they exhaled and grinned. What a relief! They felt more comfortable with the girl already. And Kin didn't seem to be kicking up no dust, so it seemed all was well.

"You've got it exactly right, ma'am" said the one called Cake, a funny fat fellow with a snub nose, "But it weren't no cake I asked the hoor to make me. It was a pie—an apple pie, like my Mammy used to make me in Winchester, Virginia. Yes a pie—an apple pie. No cake at all! But these fellows can't get nothing right, ma'am." 

"Look here," said Looky. "I expect Cake's a sight better name than Pie. So you can count your blessings. Look here—you can count your blessings, I say!"

They were eager to know where she was from—cowboys were always from somewhere else, they explained, and Ella would come to know that the first question they ever asked anyone was where they had lived—been born—been raised, in the hopes of discovering mutual acquaintances, or even shared branches of the same family. Ella reveled in the attention. She was from Georgia, she explained—Georgia! Well, what part? Atlanta! Why, Little Joe's got a step-brother who's got a cousin who knows a man who lives in Decatur!

"Why, I guess you're almost related," said Boots, slapping his knee.

The one called Little Joe blushed red as an Indian at being referred to, even the tips of his ears growing red and hot. He was young—Ella guessed he was no older than herself, and my goodness, he reminded her of Wade! He was painfully shy and he would not meet her eyes with his big brown ones. Ella wondered how he could spend so much time among such a group of rowdy fellows if he was so bashful. Tiny put his arm around the boy and rolled his dark eyes toward her as he spoke.

"Why, you gotta forgive him, Mrs. Kinnicut," he said. "The boy ain't got no way with women. He ain't even had his first poke yet."

"But we'll see about that in Ogallala, by God!" cried Lank. And they began to chatter and joke so animatedly about Ogallala and all the pleasures of the flesh that could be found there that Ella began to think it must be a modern day Sodom or Gomorrah. She hid her pink face in Kin's shoulder—somehow his arm had found its way around her waist—and blushed. She liked to think she was open-minded and that she didn't shy away from new experiences—but goodness! She hoped she found her mother long before they reached Nebraska.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It had stopped raining by the time they set off to the crossing, and when they reached it, Ella drew in a breath. What a majestic sight!

Before her and behind her—all around her—were red bluff banks of the river, all shades of red known to man, redder even than the red Georgia clay she knew so well. The river itself was as red as its name, the sediment of those red waters marking the timber along its course. High in the branches of the trees were pieces of driftwood, here and there, that was a silent but mighty reminder of what could be expected of the river if she grew sportive or angry.

The tall bluffs against the blue sky—the sheer amount of red, flat water—it was dizzying. They rounded the bend and Ella saw suddenly a great amount of cattle—some swimming—some across the river already, others waiting their turn on the same side of the bank as she. A wagon was being caulked and made ready for the float—it was the chuck wagon, which held their bedrolls and the water barrels, and a dismal brown man, who sat on the tongue, scowling. The cowboys had branched out and were swimming their horses across, the men on the banks waving their ropes and shouting to the cattle, the keen, high, cowboy's call rising in the air: "Hi! Hi yi yi! Git along! Git along, now!"

The air was full of the sound of hooves and the lowing of cattle, the neighs and whinnies of the horses, the splashing, the "Hi yi yis" and men calling "Head 'em off! You, Red, watch out for them dogies!" Captain Lexington waited on one of the bluffs other side of the river, presiding over the scene with the air of a god atop Mount Olympus.

Ella picked her way down to the crossing and stopped, unsure of herself. She caught sight of a narrow white cross on the far bank and called to Kin, who was a little ahead, his rope out and at the ready.

"Why, there's a grave here!" she said, in sudden fright, and superstitiously crossed herself. Graves in unexpected places always scared her. And Dilcey had told her that the sight of a grave when embarking on a journey was an omen of ill-portent. Ella crossed herself again, just to be sure.

"There's more than one grave along these banks," Kin explained. "The Red isn't always as placid as she is today, Lorie. We're crossing at a good time. Come along, now. Not frightened, are you?"

"No," Ella said, but at the sight of that cross she suddenly realized that it wasn't a game she was embarking on. A sense of seriousness and danger was suddenly over every thing. This was not a playful jaunt over gentle country, but a wild trip, full of perils and hazards that she had not contemplated. Her hands trembled as she held the reins. Anything might happen to her—anything at all. Suppose she was to die along their route? Suppose somewhere there was a stretch of red land, waiting to be marked by a cross—her cross. A sense of panic filled her. Oh, please, God, don't let me die—not before I've found my mother!

But then she remembered Kin. He would never let any harm befall her. Why, he had said so himself—he had promised. And she did not know very much about him but she knew he kept his word. She forded the river and came up triumphant on the other side, a little wet, but no worse for the wear.

She grinned at Kin and spurred Mr. Butler forward into the melee of hooves and dust. She did not look back, not even for a glimpse of those red bluffs behind. She had gotten in the habit of never looking back, and besides, the red bluffs before her were just as majestic as the ones at her back. All the same, she would never forget that white grave on the banks of the Red River, so tiny and white and insignificant against the great red cliffs and all that blue sky. No, she would never forget it—never quite. For Ella, it seemed to mark the death of her young, carefree girlhood. She had always been so sheltered and protected—but no more. From that moment onward, she was a woman, and her burdens and troubles would be those of a woman. From that moment on, the world was wide and free, and open to her on all sides.


	25. Chapter 25

Rhett groaned and went over to the window, looking down on the street below.

The scene was anything but peaceful. At this time of the day, when the sun began its slow descent into the flat, gray waters of the Mississippi, Bourbon street, placid and peaceful in the hot hours of the day, came alive as townsfolk and tourists ventured out to taste the nightlife. Men, black and white, wandered in and out of saloons and called to one another. There was the tinkling music of an organ grinder rising up from the corner of Canal, and a line of patrons waiting patiently outside of Antoine's, hoping to be let in for supper.

The sun slipped further down the sky, and a Negro boy came along to light the gas street-lamps, singing to himself. The song rose up and was enveloped in the general liveliness of the scene. Rhett watched for a moment longer, groaned again, and collapsed on the big white bed. As a small boy he would have been whipped for lying in bed with his boots on but Rhett did not care that he was ruining the linens with mud and straw. He ground his heels into the blanket with a furious pleasure and cursed the Hotel Bourbon and its staff. Damn them, damn New Orleans, damn them all!

He had been in New Orleans for two days now, hunting for Ella. Shortly after his arrival he had contacted one of his old associates, a large mulatto man who knew all the comings and goings of the town. He paid the man a large amount of money and told him to find the girl. But it had been two days, and for the first time in their business relationship, DuPre had come to Rhett empty-handed.

"Don't anybody know a thing about your girl," he said, shrugging his massive shoulders. "I asked around in all the ho-tels—discreet-like, just how you told me. But thorough—yes, sir, real thorough. Ain't nobody seen no girl nor heard of her. And no woman, like you said, neither."

He returned the small miniature of Scarlett that Rhett had given DuPre to use to make his inquiries.

"Shore is pretty, though, Mist' Butler. Pretty enough that I expect folks would remember a face like that. But no one does—or if they do, they ain't sayin'."

"Thank you, DuPre," Rhett growled, in the same voice in which he would have damned the man to hell for all eternity. He dismissed the Negro and pocketed the miniature, but not before looking at it for a long moment.

Scarlett! Scarlett O'Hara! Rhett had made his own inquiries after Ella, and still more discreetly, had inquired about Scarlett. But no one knew her or of her. It wasn't possible for a woman to disappear into thin air! She had to be here—hadn't she?

He had not realized how much he had wanted to see her—or if not see her, hear of her. Life had been flat and boring with Scarlett gone out of it. Maybe that accounted for the distinct lack of flavor in it these days. No one could stir a pot like Scarlett O'Hara. Rhett looked down at the miniature again.

It had been painted while she was carrying Bonnie. The face was placid and serene and the eyes large, but even the painter had not been able to suppress the glow in them, or the taste of sharp words on her pretty lips. Her upper lip was faintly curled, and she seemed to be laughing scornfully. _Fiddle-dee-dee, Rhett Butler! I guess you haven't forgotten about me. I guess you haven't beat me, after all! _

"Scarlett," he said, heavily, to her painted face, "I always knew you would win in the end."

With no outward show of emotion, Rhett placed the miniature on the floor and brought his heel upon it, hard. How good it was to feel the horrid thing smash under his foot! If only he could obliterate Scarlett from his life in the same way!

But he could not excise her—he had tried for ten years. Oh, he wouldn't lie—sometimes days or even weeks would go by without the slightest thought of her. That was worse, somehow, for when she came back he was reminded all over again that he was not able to shake her—would never be able to completely forget her. And Scarlett always came back to him.

Wasn't it natural that he should think of her? He had loved her. They had been married for nearly six years, had shared a bed, and borne a child, the prettiest, most spirited little child that the world had ever seen.

Rhett reached into his pocket now and brought out another miniature, of a little girl with black hair and blue ribbons in that black, black hair. Other than that black hair he might have had no part in making her—for other than that, she was completely Scarlett. Bonnie had had the square face that Scarlett shared with her Irish father, and his blue eyes.

He knew every feature of that face and had translated them into adulthood, but still he ran his eyes over the picture hungrily. The portraitist had captured the little girl in a rare moment of peace; she was looking down, her blue eyes hidden. Rhett considered his options. He could smash this miniature under his heel, too, but it would no more remove Bonnie from his mind than it would Scarlett. And there was a difference. Rhett wanted to forget Scarlett. He did not want to forget Bonnie. But in remembering Bonnie, he could never forget Scarlett, and if he could not forget Scarlett, he would never have any peace.

He remembered another visit to New Orleans, with Bonnie, in those terrible dark days after Ashley Wilkes's party—a visit that preceded those terrible dark days when Scarlett had fallen and lost their baby. Oh, if only he could find some place that would not remind him of her! Rhett remembered how the child had lisped, over and over again, "Where is mama? Daddy, where is she?"

Where was she, indeed? And where, for that matter, was Ella, who had come to find her?

Rhett suddenly rose, and reached for his coat. He needed a drink very badly—so badly that his hands shook. And for once, he did not feel like drinking alone.

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Tujague's had not changed in all the years since Rhett had seen it last. The same red and white awning covered the same fly-specked window, and the same fleur de lis on the same sign above the door. And, walking in, the same bell gave its merry tinkle—and the same buxom, red-faced, be-turbaned woman was wiping the same glasses behind the old, familiar bar.

It was not fashionable enough to be a popular place, though it looked prosperous enough, and Rhett was glad to see that the room was deserted except for the red woman, and the young boy serving drinks. He grinned, a flash of his old roguishness coming back. She certainly wouldn't be expecting him! He'd lay a wager on it.

"Hello, Vivy."

She nearly dropped the glass she was holding, at the sound of his voice.

"Saints alive!" she cried, upon seeing him. "Has somebody deceased?"

"No—it's not that, Viv. Nothing like that."

"Lord be praised! Her eyes narrowed. "Well, you might have said so when you came in, instead of scaring me half to death."

Rhett sat and accepted a glass of bourbon from the bar-boy, who slid the glass to him down the long polished bar. He caught it neatly, lifted it to his lips, and drank. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Mama Tujague regained her old composure, and began to wipe her glass again, slowly and deliberately this time, avoiding his glance.

She was a stubborn woman, and her stubbornness only seemed to have grown in the years since he'd last seen her, along with her girth. She was determined not to speak first, and Rhett would be damned if he would, even though it was he who had come to get news from her. Still, he waited, a cat's smile on his lips, knowing that, after all, she was a woman, and not impervious to a woman's curiosity.

Finally, she said,

"You might as well tell me why you come here. If nobody's 'ceased, what is it?"

"I was looking for someone."

"The boy?"

No—Rhett had not been looking for him, had not intended to seek him out, but he knew that the one reason his feet had carried him here to this old familiar place was to find out news of him. Rhett was an old man—fifty-five. What had he done with his life besides earn a lot of money and then waste it? Well, he had had two children. One was dead. The other—he hadn't had any news of the other in many years. The last time he had been in town was with Bonnie, and he had not wanted to seek out the boy with Bonnie in tow. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps he should have introduced them, the sister and brother. They would never meet, now, and Rhett's heart constricted to think of all of the missed chances, opportunities. All of the things Bonnie would never have the chance to do.

Mama Tujague narrowed her eyes again and Rhett knew that she had discerned his thoughts. She studiously wiped her glass, but could not keep a small, smug smile from showing on her face.

"No, I haven't come looking for him. Perhaps I should have come before. But look here, Vivy, seeing as I am here, you might as well tell me about him."

At least, this way, he could return to Belle and tell her that the boy was well, and doing fine for himself. Perhaps that would take away a little of her wistfulness. And—and, though he hated to admit it to himself, he was curious. How far could a boy rise in the world with no family, no money, no connections? But then, the boy was his son, so he must have found a way around it somehow. It took much to keep a Butler man down in the dust.

Her eyes softened.

"Well, he's a good boy," she said slowly. "He was in here not last week, before starting up the trail. We had a party for him."

"Up the trail? Is he a cowboy?"

"_Oui, m'sieur_—and a might' good one at that."

Rhett turned the corner of his mouth up in a wry smile. What a dashing figure he must be, sitting atop his saddle, browned by the wind and sun. He had always been a handsome child, and there was no reason to think he'd not be a handsome man. Rhett was reminded of his own wayward youth, the time spent in the California gold fields. Perhaps he had been wrong to write the boy off so completely. He sipped his bourbon, and felt something within him unlock and give way. He wanted to know more, and as long as he was here, he might as well ask.

"Well, what else, Vivy? There is something else, because you look like a cat that swallowed a chicken. Tell me. What else about the boy?"

"Married," she said proudly. "He's married. A real cute little thing, is 'Zavy's wife. Sorter shy and quiet but a lady, through and through. 'Zavy's crazy about her. Of course, he acted real cool but you could see it. They sot off together. Why, I suppose you'll be a granddaddy real soon."

Rhett pushed his glass away in disgust. He suddenly felt very old, at hearing this news. He had lived the lives of a dozen men, but he still felt as though his own real life had not begun. He couldn't be a grandfather, not when his old life had not yet begun. And, he supposed, he would never see these grandchildren, even when and if they were born. What was the point? What was the point of getting worked up over things that would have no bearing on his life? A grandchild—perhaps a pretty little girl, a girl like Bonnie had been. With Butler blood in her. Another Bonnie. He felt old and weary and very, very tired.

"That's good," he said, his eagerness evaporated, his old remote ways coming back. "That's real good, Vivy. Can I give you some money to give to him when he's next here?"

"No _m'sieur_! You know as well as I that 'Zavy won't take money from a stranger. He don't like charity."

"It's not money from a stranger. It's money from me."

"Like I said, he don't want money from no stranger."

"Just give it to him. He'd never have to know where it came from."

Her eyes were doubtful, she pulled her mouth up and pursed it.

"Well, I reckon I'd know," she said. "And I ain't goin' to pass off no guilt money to him. 'Sides, I got a thriving business. I can support my own."

What she did not say hung in the air between them: _I can support my own, and he is mine. He is not yours. He is no part of your life. You did not want him and now you cannot have him_. Rhett drained his glass and balled his hands into fists.

"I left it too long," he said, with a burst of uncharacteristic passion. "I left it too long—God damn it. There's no going back at this late date. I left it too long."

"Yes, you did," she said, but there was no chafe of blame or anger in her voice. "But mean you can't start trying."

"_Umquam porro_, Vivy! There's a motto for you. Ever forward—no looking back."

"_Qui cherche trouve_," she said bitingly. "'He who seeks, finds.' I know a heap of mottoes, too."

He smiled, despite himself. "I know you do."

She smiled, grudgingly, in the face of his good humor, and ventured a question.

"How's Belle?" she wanted to know. "Still liking Atlanta?"

"Liking it well enough. As well as anyone can."

"Old Belle's a Louisianan. I 'spect she misses home." Her face softened. "You tell her Vivy Tujague wants to be remembered to her. Belle's a good girl. Every now and then we still get some old pardner askin' bout her. Yes, we still miss her round these parts."

"I'll let her know. Goodbye, Vivy."

"So long, _m'sieur_. And Rhett?"

"Yes?"

"He's a real nice boy. Good-looking. Hot-tempered. Gambles clean and quick, with a cool head. Don't cry none over spilt milk. He makes the best he can. You'd like him."

Rhett pulled his lip down and balled his fists in his pockets.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, you're right. I probably would."

He turned and went out, the bell on the door tinkling merrily as it closed behind him.


	26. Chapter 26

They crossed into Indian Territory, and Ella was disappointed that she didn't see even _one_ Indian. She kept alert, casting her eyes all over, but didn't see any people except her own people. For that matter, she didn't see much of anything, besides cattle and cowboys and dust—and the rolling, rolling plains that stretched far away on either side.

There weren't even any trees. Ella felt the lack of them. Oh, for the shade of just _one_ of the magnificent Twelve Oaks back home! She soon became so sunburned that her face ached when she moved her lips to talk. The glare of the sun was always in her eyes and her throat was so parched and dusty that she thought, at times, she couldn't breathe. Everything smelled of cattle. That was the worst thing. Sometimes the stench was so strong that it nearly overcame her. She washed her face and hands thoroughly each night before laying down in her tent, but in her dreams she still smelled it—the strong, sour, earthy smell of cattle. It clung to her clothes and her hair.

But for all that, she was happy. So happy that she wondered if she had ever been happy before. For the first time in her life she had a purpose and it was nice to have something to wake up for, something to look forward to. She, who had never been out of Georgia in her previous sixteen years, now was working her way into Indian country. Exhiliarating thought! She looked curiously at everything they passed, and commented on it, storing up questions to ask later, around the campfire. What made the sky seem so round and full? What kind of trees were those little scrubby ones down in the creek bottoms? And when would she see an Indian in this vast, empty, flat landed place?

"What a shame that they've given all this nice land to the Indians," she remarked to Kin one day, as they rode along under the vast, wide blue sky. Blue—blue—blue—why, you'd have to say it a hundred times to really describe it.

Kin pulled his lip down and looked at her with a strange amusement in his eyes.

"You little ignorant filly! We didn't _give_ the Indians any land—it was theirs to begin with," he said. "We took it from them. All the land, Ella—from Maine to the California coast, was the Indians' before we came and pushed them out. This puny piece is all they have left, and it isn't worth much when you think of the unspoiled grandeur that used to be theirs alone."

Ella shrugged as he rode away, back up the line. This land seemed nice enough. It was gentle rolling, verdant, green. The cattle hooves turned up clumps of grass and underneath she saw a dark black dirt, rich with the potential for life. She wondered what kind of crops would grow here? She bet corn and grain would grow sky-high here! But not cotton—no place on earth grew cotton as well as the red soil of Clayton County.

She wanted to tell Kin about it, and ask questions, and laugh with him, but she rarely had the chance. She was all the way at the back of the drive, and he was up front. Kin was a point hand, a leader, too valuable to be kept in the back with the dogies and the wagon. Ella found herself, at times, very lonely. She rode alongside the wagon and tried to make small-talk with Ignacio, the cook. He was a wizened, brown, Mexican man, whose lower lip stuck out in displeasure at all times. He slumped so low in the wagon seat that at times Ella thought he might curl inside himself and disappear. That would not upset her too much, for she and Ignacio had, in their short acquaintance, come to an understanding, and that understand was that they did not like each other and never would.

"Do not ee-spect I will let you help me cook," he told her blackly.

"Why, I never thought about it!" said Ella loftily. "You can cook and I'll eat. I wouldn't dream of helping you. I've never learned to cook at all."

Ignacio looked as though his opinion of her were even lower than it had been.

"I would not marry a woman who did not cook," he said, more to himself than Ella, but she bristled all the same.

"I wouldn't marry a man with such untidy whiskers," she flung at him. "And besides, I'm married already. You mind your tongue, old man, or I'll tell Kin you were rude to me and he'll tell Captain Lexington."

"Let him tell _El Capitan_ if he wants to," was Ignacio's rejoinder. "God will know the truth." And then he blessed himself, looking piously to the heavens as though he expected God himself to give his agreement.

Ella stuck her tongue out at him and watched as he pushed his lip out even more. She laughed and spurred her horse into a canter, running further and further up the line of cattle. She liked to feel as though she were a part of things, liked to be in the middle of the group of dust and cows and men, hear them shouting orders and calling to one another. But Kin had told her she mustn't do it again. She must stay in the back with Ignacio. She was a good rider, but not an experienced one. If the cattle charged, she might lose her seat, and be trampled under their hooves.

So Ella and Ignacio spent day after day together, never speaking unless it was to make thinly veiled, hateful remarks about the other. Ella had to admit that she _was_ glad for Ignacio's presence at mealtimes. The old man _could_ cook—or else it was just that all the fresh air and all the riding made her hungry. Her first night around the campfire she ate four plates of "Hoppin' John"—a mixture of black-eyed peas and rice—and then spent the rest of the night and next day in mortal fear that she should break wind before any of the men. Why, it was worse than belching, and belching was something ladies never did! She had a terrible time of it for a day or two, but then grew used to the rude fare, and did not think of it again.

Night time was better than the day. They made camp about an hour or two after sundown. The cattle were let loose in the nearest creek bottom, the dogies crying happily as they were reunited with their mothers. The men came back, dusty and hot and hungry and a happy, noisy meal was had around the campfire. When it was eaten, four or five of the men would start out to keep night watch, and to make sure the herd did not stray too far away.

When it was Kin's turn for night watch, Ella missed him terribly. She waited all day to see him, to sit with his arm around her shoulders companionably as Tiny played his banjo, and everyone sang along. Once she asked Kin if she might come along with him on watch, and he agreed. She had not expected him to. She sat before him on the saddle, her own horse having been turned out with the rest of the remuda to roll in the grass. She was glad for the darkness as they rode along, bodies pressed close together, for she was sure her face was crimson.

But after a while she forgot to be embarrassed and her blushes faded away. My, how many stars there were! The soft lowing of the cattle was the only sound besides the wind in the prairie grasses. Now and then they could hear the long, high wail of a coyote in the distance. But far away—not so near enough to break the night's magic spell.

They rode and rode, up the line and back, down to the river bottom where a few cattle and horses drank. The moon was very white on the flat brown water.

"That's the Washita river," Kin told her, and his voice was very low against her ear. They stopped to watch the water and the moon in silence for a long while, and Ella felt a sort of quiet peace, deep within her soul. She had never felt it before, never before this moment in the pale moonlight. Kin's arm was around her waist, and he leaned his head casually down and pressed his lips to the back of her neck.

The spell was broken! Ella was so surprised that she jumped—and would have slid right off the saddle if he had not held her there. She craned her neck to look at him, and saw something like disgust—and—and maybe disappointment?—in his eyes. She tried to laugh but the moonlight did not seem so white and pale as it had before. The moment had gone.

They went back to camp in silence, and Kin helped her down and walked her to her tent with a casual air. His hands were in his pockets, and Ella knew that he would not ask her to go along on night-watch again.

He said good-night to her as though she were a thing of utter insignificance and went away. She heard him join the others by the campfire and start to talk and laugh with them and was surprised and angry to find that there were tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She punched her makeshift pillow and tossed on her bedroll. She didn't care! She didn't care if Xavier Kinnicut liked her or not! She must not forget why she had come on the drive. To find mother. She had not come along to make friends.

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But she was making friends, even if it was not what she had set out to do. Ella had never had a friend before—not a _real_ friend. Sally was mean to her; Susie laughed at her. Wade was kind but distant. Beau might have been her friend—but there was always something in his eyes that she could not understand, and that kept them from really being friends with one another.

There had been other young folks in the County—but the County was not what it was before the war. Then, there had been balls and barbecues. But time for leisure was scarce now that everyone had to work so hard to make ends meet. Ella had never been to either; the County folks she knew were just neighbors.

And there was something besides that: folks in the County were _different_ toward Ella. Oh, the grown-ups twitted other girls about their beaux, and pulled their pig-tails, and pinched their cheeks, while the girls protested they had no beaux, and pretended not to enjoy the little, good-natured pinches and sallies. No one had ever pulled Ella's pig-tail, though she wouldn't have minded if they had. They were kind to her, kind, but polite and aloof. Even old Beatrice Tarleton, who would talk the hind legs off a mule, had hardly a word to say to Ella.

"It's because of your mother," Susie had sneered, once, way back some time when they had both been young. Ella had cried, but she had not understood. Why should anyone not want to talk to her because her mother was dead? The Bible said to be kind to orphans. Then for a while, she had thought that perhaps they could not bear to speak of her mother, because they missed her. Ella missed her, so she thought of course that the others must, too.

But now that she knew her mother was not dead—now that she knew about her mother—she understood. She had not wanted to believe what India Wilkes said but she could not deny it was true. It was as though the missing piece of some great puzzle had been put into place. Her mother had been a Scallywag, she had been no better than a carpet-bagger. She had married one husband for spite, and one for his money, and she had killed him. Or so India said. The worst thing was that Scarlett O'Hara had loved a man who was married to someone else. Ella writhed with shame when she thought about it. Oh, how could mother have done _that_? She was torn between loyalty to Scarlett and the thought that it was really too wicked to be believed. Her loyalty won out in the end.

"I think Mother was brave," she told Kin. "Everyone wants things—even things they can't have. They just keep them to themselves. Mother didn't care who knew. And if she wanted something, she went and got it."

Kin nodded, but said nothing. In their time together Ella had told him nearly everything about her mother, and found him a most satisfactory confidant. He listened, and did not try to muddle her opinions by offering his. She leant forward and impulsively kissed his cheek, and laughed.

"You know I don't love you but I am getting to be fond of you," she said, and threw him a saucy glance as she cantered off.

Kin watched her go. She rode up to the camp and dismounted; there was a great commotion as men stood and respectfully took off their hats. Looky swelled with pride because she took his hand so that he could help her down. Tiny and Buck fought over who would take the reins of her horse. Lank came running with a dipper of water, Red close behind with a plate of beans and rice. Even meek, shy Little Joe had something to offer—a little cluster of lady's-slippers he had searched for and brought back to her.

"I th-thought they'd l-look right pretty in your hair," he stammered, a painful shade of crimson.

Ella fixed the wild orchids behind her ear and preened in the little shaving mirror that Buck held out to her. She dimpled, at her reflection; her dimple deepened when she saw that the group of men had followed her to the campfire. Oh, they were all so nice and attentive! Everyone wanted to talk to her, to tell her wild stories, to tempt her with campfire delicacies and win her favor. Even Captain Lexington had the habit of stopping outside her tent each night, just before bed-time, to pay his respects.

The only ones who did not cluster around her where Ignacio, who glowered, and crossed himself whenever she met his eyes—and Kin. Kin kept his distance from the group, often times shaking his head in an amused way, and shrugging his shoulders. But there was a sort of watchful, waiting look in his eyes that Ella did not see. She did not notice it—she was having too much fun! Flip brought her another piece of cornbread. She thanked him prettily and ate it. Boots was playing her favorite song on the banjo—she laughed, and sang along.

At times, she wondered if _this_ was what it was like to be a belle? With people noticing you, and wanting to please you, all the day long! No wonder mother had liked it! It was fun.

"And anyone who says it isn't has a bad case of sour grapes," said Ella to herself, "Like India Wilkes! I bet nobody made a fuss over her in her whole life!"

She felt inordinately sorry for girls who had no one to make a fuss over them. She blossomed in the face of such open admiration, and her shy, timid ways began to disappear. She felt happy and pretty and open and _free_ because she had friends, for the first time, and because she was popular and well-liked.

She was an entirely different girl from the one who had started down the trail a hundred miles ago. Something had changed inside of her to make her different. What a pale, laughless little thing she had been! She could never—would never—go back to being that girl.

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One stormy afternoon they left Indian Territory.

Ella kept her head down, so that the rain would not blind her, and hoped fervently that her horse would not lose its footing in the slick mud. Mr. Butler was a sure, steady mount but the rain was hard and the ground so boggy that sometimes his hooves stuck and she was jolted. She was clutching the reins so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her head was down, and if Kin had not called to her, she would have missed it.

"Look, Ella!" he said.

She saw nothing through the sheets of rain at first—and then only a miserable shack, a dark shadow against the vast expanse of prairie. But then a door opened, and a brown face peered out, and Ella saw and Indian woman, wearing a threadbare calico dress, carrying her baby in her arms. The woman stood in the rain, watching them, as if she did not notice she was getting wet. As if, to her, there was no rain at all.

Kin dropped back and pulled up next to Captain Lexington—Ella saw him bend his head near. The Captain nodded. Kin rode to the rear of the line and came back leading two old cows and a calf. They had been tethered together. He gave the lead line to the Indian woman, putting it right in her hand. She shifted her baby to the other arm and took it. The rain poured off her face in rivulets.

"So you've seen yourself an Indian," Buck crowed. "Bet you thought the whole place was empty, didn't you? I ain't never seen Indian Territory so dead. I was beginning to think they all picked up and moved elsewheres."

Ella said nothing. She kept looking back at the woman—the tall, proud figure—so unmindful of the storm and wind and rain, until they faded into the misty landscape and were lost in the distance. She could no longer see her, but Ella felt sure she was there yet, standing in the rain, and paying no notice to it. The woman's eyes had been dark and watchful. She had not blinked as they passed by.

It stopped raining only a little while later. The sun came out as they crossed the Cimarron River. Indian Territory was behind—they were in Kansas now.


	27. Chapter 27

Kansas wasn't too different from Indian country. The rolling hills had flattened out so gradually that one day Ella was surprised when she looked around and realized that she truly in the plains territory. The sky was like a great, upended bowl overhead and the green, fertile land stretched to the misty edges horizon without so much as a ripple.

She saw more Indians in Kansas than she saw in the whole of Indian Territory. By day, the drive would sometimes pass a group of brown, sullen men on bow-legged ponys. The men always stopped to let the drive pass, blank and impassively, a thinly veiled rebuke staring out from their dark eyes. Ella and Ignacio were the last to pass them. She shuddered a little from the hot fury that was barely concealed in their faces. Ignacio crossed himself, and looked back with equal parts hatred.

"Why should you hate the Indians?" Ella asked him once. "You're a Mexican—it can't be too different."

Ignacio was shocked—he rolled his little black eyes and pushed his lip out further.

"I no Mestizo!" he cried, his pride wounded, and sulked for the rest of the day. Ella was mystified, but she did not make the mistake again. Why, the Indians and Ignacio seemed to be nearly the exact same shade of skin color, all of them healthy brown and tanned like leather from the sun. But Ignacio set himself up above the rest of them, and did not consider himself to be like them. How strange! She could not understand it.

One night they headed to make camp in the creek bottom and found a small campfire, surrounded by four or five braves and a squaw. The firelight flickered on the amber liquid in the glass bottles by their feet. The Indians regarded them coolly and calmly, but there was the tiniest of movements—and Ella saw the silvery flash of a blade in the hand of the largest one. His teeth showed in his brown face. No words were exchanged, but the hint of a threat hung in the air.

Ella felt, rather than saw, Kin appear beside her. His own hand dropped casually down on his hip, toward his revolver. She saw that the other hands of the other men around her had done the same, and groped desperately for the handle of her own pistol.

But Captain Lexington touched the brim of his hat.

"Apologies for disturbing you-all," he said. "We'll make our camp elsewheres. Come on, boys."

They had to ride another hour or two before they found another bottom that was not all mud, with enough room for the cattle to drink. And when they woke in the morning, half-a-dozen cows were missing. Moccasin tracks led to the south and west.

"Saw about half a dozen braves making off with them, Cap'n, at 'bout two or three," said Buck, who had been on night watch. "Fired a shot or two in their direction—one of 'em fired back. He had an old buffalo gun. Well, I let him go when I heard _it_ boom. Didn't figure getting in no gun-fight with any Injuns this early on. 'Sides, they only took one milk cow and four, five dogies."

"You did just right," said the Captain, clapping Buck on the shoulder. "We've more than enough to see us through to Montany. Although, Aloysius, next time, I wish you'd kill at least one of them. It won't do for us to give a reputation of giving up without a fight."

"Yes sir," said Buck, but he looked faintly anxious after that, and Ella remembered that he had a mortal fear of for his scalp and his hide, and that he'd always vowed it would be Indians that were the death of him.

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There were actual towns in Kansas; signposts along the road pointed them out. Ten miles to Tribune, fifteen to Leoti. The cowboys who were not scheduled for watch began a habit of slipping away after dinner, slyly, until Ella found herself alone with Little Joe and Ignacio around the fire. The missing hands came back around dawn, drunk on cheap whisky, and smelling of cheap perfume. And Ella realized that they had been drinking, and brawling, and whoring all night.

Little Joe was the only one who never went—his face flushed crimson when Ella asked him why.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," he said, touching his hat-brim respectfully, "But I ain't got no taste for it. I ain't never been with no whore, and 'sides, I promised my mama I warn't do nothing unsavory-like."

"He ain't never been with no female, whore or not!" cried Buck, cuffing the boy on the back of his head, and poor Little Joe reddened until his face glowed in the low-light like a hot coal.

Ella was glad for the company of him—if she had been stuck all evening alone with Ignacio she might have been tempted to kill him. Ignacio's nightly ritual consisted of praying the rosary on his knees at a short distance from the campfire, and then singing hymns to the Virgin all night long in his raspy, toneless tenor. If she shouted at him to knock off, or threw a stick at him to drive her point home, he blessed himself piously and took up his voice to a higher level. Little Joe was no conversationalist, but he probably would not let her kill Ignacio, and he listened, if he never talked.

Kin was around most nights, too, though he seldom sat for long around the fire with the other three. He stayed just a little while, and then always went off, whether or not he had watch-duty. He went to the creek bottoms to check the water level, or rode up the trail aways to get the lay of the land. Ella felt secure, knowing he was usually within shouting distance, and that he, at least, was not sampling the pleasures of the flesh.

One night, though, he left with the rest of the men. She did not notice he was gone until the fire had died down, and he did not come back. She walked down to the crick but he was not there. She wandered toward the trail and called for him, softly, once or twice, but he did not answer.

Her heart began to pound, and she put a hand to her throat, as she imagined him lying on the road somewhere, unconscious. Suppose he had gone for a swim and drowned? Suppose he had had a fall from his horse, or run across some mean Indians? She could not sleep for worrying about him, and sat up all night, wrapped in her sheepskin coat, her pistol in her hand, even after Little Joe had laid down and begun to snore by the fire, and Ignacio had retired to his wagon.

The night seemed very big and deep and dark. She heard coyotes wail from the bottoms by the river, and the soft whinnies of the horses. Everything seemed so ominous and sinister. The first faint light appeared on the curved horizon in the west, a glowing orange streak, as though it was lined with embers. It was not until that orange streak had widened into the pale streaks of dawn that Kin appeared, a shadowy figure at first, but growing nearer and nearer, straggling into camp.

She threw her pistol down and shucked off her coat and ran to him, gladness filling her whole heart. He was alive—he was not hurt! She wound her arms around his neck and pressed her face to his shoulder and sighed, a shuddering sigh, that had in it all of her fretful worry of the past hours. When she pulled back she thought that she would tell him how fearful she had been for him—and—and—why, how much he meant to her! But as she raised her face to his, she pulled back, for she saw, all of a sudden, that he was not himself.

His eyes glittered dangerously and his mouth was cruel and mocking with drink. He seemed more loose-limbed, and easier, somehow—but all the same, he was coiled, like a snake, ready to strike. There was something reckless about him, and Ella pushed him away with a gasp.

"You're drunk!"

"No," he said, with mock-gravity. "I am not drunk."

"Yes, you are! Oh, I could kill you with my bare hands! How dare you lie to me?"

"What I meant to say," said Kin slowly, "Is that I am not merely drunk—I am very, very drunk. I only meant to correct you, Mrs. Kinnicut—not lie. I am drunk—drunk, drunk, drunk—but don't fear, darling. I've been drunker."

"I thought you were dead someplace," shrieked Ella, so loudly that Little Joe sat up suddenly by the fire, and Ignacio poked his brown face around the curtain flap to watch the excitement. "You went to town with the others—but I thought you were dead!"

Kin laughed then—a sharp sound.

"Silly," he said. "No one ever died from a little sport."

She slapped his face—it was a ringing sound that rent the peaceful night. Kin looked for a moment as though he would grab her, but she lunged away and cried,

"Sporting! Oh, you're a beast, you're foul. I hate you, I hate you!"

Kin caught her wrist and twisted it.

"Don't be a nag, Ella," he hissed like a snake. "And don't forget that you have no claims on me at all. I could leave you right here and ride away with a clear conscience, and never think of you again. You have no claims on me—and I none on you. If you wanted to sport yourself, I wouldn't blink an eye."

"You're my husband!"

"Yes—and you're my wife. What is the problem?"

"Everyone will think that—that…"

"That we do not harbour in our hearts the true sentiment of love toward one another?" he questioned. "Don't be stupid, Ella. We don't share a tent. The others know that our marriage is a thing of convenience. They know we aren't in love. How silly of you! We've made it clear to them—and you've made it very clear to me. Now, I am going to get a little sleep, and I suggest you do the same, or else it will be rough riding tomorrow. The others will be back soon."

He let her go and strode away, and she went to her tent as he had suggested, but she did not sleep. She burst into hot, furious tears instead, and did not care if he or Little Joe, or even Ignacio heard. She sobbed and sobbed, and punched her pillow again and again, wishing it was Kin's smug face as he mocked her.

Ella did not think that maybe _his_ feelings were raw—that maybe he was acting to get even with her for her rebuffs. She did not suppose that he ever wanted her—in the way a husband wants a wife—or that he wanted something more from her than she had made it clear she was willing to give him. She did not think that perhaps it was a torment to him, to be so near to her every day, and every night, to watch her sway in the saddle, to watch her smiles spread so beguilingly over her pretty face, and not be able to have her.

She only thought that he was very mean, because he was a snake, and not a nice person, after all. She cried and cried, and her pride was wounded, and her heart beat painfully in her chest. But she did not know why, and only cried harder, because she could not understand why he should be so cruel.

She never supposed that she had made him want her, or even that he might have grown to love her, and that in not returning his feelings, she was being very cruel herself.


	28. Chapter 28

There was a gray, ominous cloud in the north-west. It exactly suited Ella's mood.

She was sour and put out. Ignacio had woken with a toothache and could not be persuaded to make breakfast, no matter how hard they all pestered him, or threatened him with whippings and, even (as a last ditch attempt) outright killing.

"My tooth hurt," he groaned, as he hunched over, stirring his cup of coffee. "You leave me be. I no cook today."

They had had to make do with corn-tack left over from last night's supper—there was barely enough to go around, and Ella was hungry. More than that, she had slept poorly. They had camped outside of Dodge City, and the ground had seemed rocky and more uncomfortable than usual. She had been woken up from a dead sleep by a fight between Boots and Tiny—they had gotten into it over a game of cards in a saloon, and carried their fight back to camp. Boots, drunk, had maintained that Tiny had cheated him. Tiny, drunker, had retorted that he would cut Boots's pecker off with his Bowie knife for calling him a cheat. And then he had tried to do it. It had taken the Captain and Kin and Buck to hold Boots back, and the rest of the camp had had as much as they could do to keep Tiny from carrying through his threat. The men had been sequested and gone to bed the bitterest of enemies; this morning, however, they were back to being friends, banded together in their mutual loathing of the cook. Last night had been forgotten between them.

The wind picked up and pulled at Ella's hat; she planted it more firmly on her head and looked up to feel Kin's eyes on her. He gave her a little smile. She did not smile back. She had not forgotten their own fight, and though Kin had been kind and polite and friendly to her ever since—and had made a big deal of not going into town again with the others—she was cold to him, and would not speak to him. She refrained looking in his direction whenever it was humanly possible, and as she felt his eyes on her, she made her face blank, and her eyes looked through him as though he were made of glass. Kin looked hurt—his shoulders droopped—and then he spurred his horse away back up the line. _Good_, though Ella, and clutched at her hat as it threatened to fly off again.

It was slow riding—the wind was in their faces, the horses' heads were bowed. The wind squalled and threatened to tear the canvas cover off the wagon, and Ignacio, his cheek swollen and distended, glowered as he had to get up again and again to tie it down. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the cattle were spooked. Several times they stopped and threatened to change direction. They did not want to go toward the big black cloud. The cowboys were riding here and there, frantically waving their ropes and calling, "Hi, yi! Hi, yi yi!" to get the cows to move in one direction again.

The great clouds piled up on top of each other, so that soon the sky was pitch-black, and it seemed as though they were riding at night. Captain Lexington broke off from the group and pulled up on his horse beside Ella.

"Looks like we're in for some nasty weather, Mrs. K," he said amiably. "But don't you fret. You just stay back here with Ignacio, and you'll be all right."

His tone was even enough, but Ella saw the worried way his eyes scanned the horizon, and her shoulders slumped as she realized that she would soon be riding through the rain. Riding through the wind was bad enough, but a driving rain was miserable. It blinded her, and made cold little streams down her neck. She twisted to get her slicker out of her saddlebag, and just when she had it, the wind whipped it from her hand. She watched it fly away down the prairie.

They were heading right into the storm, and the clouds began to light up from the inside with a weird light. A first few fat drops of rain began to splatter. There was a sickening, ominous crack of thunder, and then a streak of lightning dipped down toward the earth.

Ella hid her ears in fright as it rent the black sky. And then she gasped as she saw blue fingers of electricity jump from one cattle's horns to another. It crawled through the herd.

And then the cattle stampeded.

She watched in horror as the animals began to move as one, running, fighting, crushing the ground and each other with their hooves. The sound of their frightened wails filled the air. The herd turned sharply, suddenly to the right, and Ella screamed as she saw a horse and rider pulled down amid the trampling hooves.

Who was it? Who was it? She was almost sure it was Cake, but it may have been Buck, or Red. The horse was a big white charger. Oh, please let it not be Buck. And if it was Cake or Red, let him not be hurt too badly.

Ella's own horse reared as the herd changed direction again, and her panic became so palpable a thing that she could smell and taste it. Oh, God, let her not die! Let her not be crushed to death by these rampaging beasts! The reins fell from her hands and she could not reach down to pick them up without falling. She clung to Mr. Butler's mane as he reared and tried to throw her off, again and again. She thought suddenly of Bonnie. The rain was blinding her.

And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain let up. The sky was still black, but the rain had stopped, and the whole heard suddenly stood still, as if they were surprised by this as Ella was. She heard the cowboys shouting to each other, and riding frantically back and forth, trying to get the herd to turn. Mr. Butler settled on his feet, and she almost sobbed with relief as the cattle turned north again, and the distance between the herd and her and the wagon widened. She scrabbled around for the rains and gave another sob as she picked them up. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God.

But then something happened: the great black cloud had suddenly turned green, and the air was filled with an peculiar yellow light. Ella had never seen anything like it before. The air was still and hot and stifling. The herd began throwing their heads, and started to run again, but this time they were running away from her. She lifted her head and saw with surprise as a piece of the black cloud broke off and hurled itself down to earth.

A roaring filled her ears—she watched, sick with shock, as the cloud twisted and turned and thickened, and began to tear the earth so that the air was filled with dust. She screamed, but the sound was whipped away from her mouth before she could even hear it.

Mr. Butler shook her again, and again, and she felt an otherworldly sense of peace as she went sailing over his head, through the air. This is how Bonnie had died—how she, Ella, would die, too. She did not mind. She was not afraid to die. But then she landed, and was surprised to find she was still living. The air was black and gritty and swirling and another dark, slender funnel touched down to the earth on her right.

The wind was all around her and she stood still, watching the dark shapes of men and animals against the darker background of sky. Everything was dark. Her hat was blown clear of her head and her hair was torn and ripped by the wind. It was the worst storm she had ever seen. Her teeth chattered, as she stood alone in the middle of the darkness. It was now so dark that she could not see more than a few feet in front of her.

Good heavens, if that big black cloud should come and suck her up, she knew that she would not live. She could not survive it. Oh, where should she go? Ella sobbed crazily as another funnel touched down in the south. There was no where she could go. Mr. Butler had run away, the cattle were somewhere ahead. Good Lord, what should she do? What should she do? Where could she go?

She screamed again without hearing it as she was pulled from behind—she though that the cloud had gotten her, and would tear her up and away from the earth. She went limp with fear, and her mind began to grow dreamy. It took her a long while to realize that it was Ignacio that had hold of her. He pulled her down and threw his small body on top of hers. She could not breathe. He had pulled her under the wagon, which creaked and swayed and threatened to be torn to pieces by the wind.

Afterwards, Ella could not say how long it lasted. She lie still, with her heart pounding against the ground, for what seemed like hours. She could feel Ignacio's heart pounding against her back. Would the sky never be still? Would the storm never stop?

"Mother!" she cried, "Mother, I'm frightened!"

After hours—or minutes—or seconds—or days, the strange, fingers of cloud that looked like slender, waving plumes of black smoke, were absorbed by the big black cloud, and were gone. The wind kept on pummeling them, rocking the wagon, for another several minutes. Ella sobbed and sobbed and buried her face in the dirt, clutching the grass in her hands. A few minutes more—and the same eerie greenish light appeared again, and Ella almost screamed with relief as the big black cloud rolled on, leaving gray sky in its wake. It was over—thank God! It was over. She had been in Hell, and now she sobbed, like an angel cast back down to earth. Oh thank God, it was over!

She began to laugh, for her nerves were as torn and battered as the wagon's canvas cover. She shouted with laughed and tears seeped from her eyes. She pulled herself up, and looked down at Ignacio, who was sprawled on his back under the wagon, and helped him up, too.

"You saved me," she gasped, "Ignacio, you saved my life! How funny!" and she began to laugh again.

He crossed himself—his lips moved in prayer—and then he turned to her. His voice was casual, but he could not bring himself to glower.

"If I let you die, _El Capitan_, he have my hide," Ignacio said, but Ella took a few wobbly steps toward him and kissed his wizened, leathery face.

"Thank you," she said, and she knew that from this moment on, she would have no more problems with Ignacio. She would not want to kill him, and he would not cross himself and glower when she came near.

They walked out a little ways from the wagon and saw that the cattle were spread out, thinly. A great many of them seemed to be missing. The men were riding helter-skelter to gather them in one herd again. Ella saw Buck on his charger, racing to the left and right, and heard the boom of Captain Lexington's voice as he shouted orders. But there was one rider who was not with the rest—he was spurring his horse toward the wagon at full gallop, and Ella began to run as she saw the rider jump of, and come toward her at a full sprint.

"Kin! Kin!" she cried, as he caught her up, and pressed his cheek to hers, his arms holding her tight. "Kin! Oh, darling!"

"You gave me a fright, Lorie." He was calling her Lorie, so they must be friends again. Oh, how glad she was to see him! She had not had time to think of him in the clamor of the storm but now that he was safe before her, she realized how terrified she was without him, how much she would have missed him, if the great black cloud should have carried him away. She began to cry, tears of fright and gladness landing on his shoulder.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I've been mean!" she cried, and he said, "I'm sorry, too." And then they stood together, with his cheek pressed against her hair, as Ella sobbed and laughed and went weak-kneed with relief. God was so good. He had not taken Kin and he might have taken him. God was so good!

"I don't want to be away from you again," she said, her face muffled against his chest. "You're going to have to let me ride up front, with you, after this. I don't want to be away from you again."

She felt him nod. And Ella spoke again, the words pulled out of her as though by the same violent cloud that had pulled the earth away.

"I love you," she said, and surprised herself by saying it. He pulled back to look at her and his face was so tender and surprised that she blushed and stammered.

"I mean, I mean…" she began, but she never got to tell him what it was she meant, or to even figure it out for herself, for Captain Lexington rode up and reined in a respectful distance away.

"Don't mean to break up no private moment," he said, and his face was grim. "But we've got work to do."

Kin gave her a last, searching glance, and went back to his mount and pulled himself up. "Giddap," Ella heard him say, and then she watched him ride off with the Captain, as they went to survey the damage.


	29. Chapter 29

A third of the herd was missing, and the wagon was almost beyond repair. The cowboys spread out, to look for them, and most of the horses. That evening, as the sun went down, it was as though the storm had never been, everything was so peaceful.

Tiny and Boots rode back into camp with about ten heads of cattle. They had found them just over the county line, grazing, without even a scratch on them. Buck and Little Joe had found another six or seven dead as doornails in a field a mile or two away. The rest were just plain missing, and would never be seen again.

The winds had carried off the wagon cover, the seat, one of the wheels, and one of the oxen. The Dutch oven was missing, too, a cause for much chagrin. There would be no dinner that night.

Looky had been found in a clearing of cottonwoods at the creek bottom in his union suit, but other than that, unscathed. The wind had picked him up right off his horse, he said, and taken all his clothes.

"We're lucky the wind left you your underwear," said Buck. "I, for one, am mighty beholden to that wind."

But they did not joke when they found Red. His poor body was crushed, and his head had been kicked in. It was Red who had been trampled when the herd had first stampeded. His horse was dead, too.

They buried him in the creek bottom that night. There was no wood to make a coffin, and so they wrapped him in linen, and packed the grave with salt from the lick near the river. They put stones over the grave, to keep it undisturbed.

Ella hid her face against Kin's shoulder as they lowered the body into the ground. She had always liked Red. He had been so brash and smiling, so quick to compliment her and make a joke. Everyone looked sad, even Ignacio, and Cake cried unabashedly. Red had been his best friend. They had been raised in Virginia together, had gone West together. They had always gone together on drives. They had been inseparable.

"I just don't know what I'm a-gonna do without him," he said, over and over, like a bewildered child. "I just plumb don't know."

Ella thought of Kin and Buck, and looked over to where they stood. One so strikingly fair and one so tall and dark—they were the best of friends. What would happen to Kin without Buck? She felt for poor Cake. How terrible to lose your best friend!

Captain Lexington sent Kin and Buck into Dodge the next day for supplies. He himself was going to ride out to the cattle lots outside of town and try to make up for the lost heads.

Ella watched Cake blubber by the ashes of last night's fire, and she was touched with inspiration. She wrote out a list and handed it to Kin.

"Can you get me these things?" she asked, and he looked at her, with a strange expression, but he shook his head 'yes.'

They came back late in the day, and Ella set to work. She measured flour and sugar, beat eggs, and peeled apples. She had never cooked before and did not know how it would all turn out, but anyway, she reminded herself, it was the thought that counted. She had soon made a fragrant concoction, and set the whole thing to cook in the new Dutch oven, and that night, she approached Cake with a plate in her hands.

"What you got there?" he sniffled, his curiosity getting the better of him, even in his grief.

"It's a pie," she said kindly, "It's an apple pie. Just like you wanted. Just like your Mammy used to make you, in Winchester, Virginia."

The look on his face made Ella want to cry herself. She handed over the plate, and Cake began to eat.

"It's real good," he said, and started to cry again. "Why, it's real good, Ella."

He cried harder with every bite, until Ella wondered how he could eat and cry at the same time without choking to death. But soon the plate was empty, and Cake seemed happier, if not restored entirely. He trotted off down to the creek bottom, to look at the little cross that Lank had whittled with Red's name.

"That was a nice thing to do," said Kin, putting his arm around Ella.

Ella just nodded. She thought that if it was Kin who had died, it would take a lot more than apple pie to make her feel better.

"It's nice to have a wife who can cook," Kin said, drawing her near.

She looked up at him.

"It's nice to _be_ your wife," she said, and the truth of it was written on her face.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They stayed two more days before breaking camp. Captain Lexington had been able to buy up about two hundred cattle, so the heard was not badly depleted. They would have to scrounge up more to make up for lost numbers, but that could be done up the trail a ways.

Another storm came up the second night, and Ella had shaken and shivered in her tent. But it was just a little storm, nothing like the other. And Kin was right outside, she reminded herself. He had taken to sleeping on the ground in front of her tent—no so near as to make her uncomfortable, but near enough that he was there if she needed him.

The rain started gently, but was coming in sheets in a moment or two. Ella swung the tent flap open and looked out, seeing Kin on his knees in the mud, trying to keep his bedroll from flying away in the wind. He had lost his hat on the day of the big storm, and his brown hair was plastered to his head.

"Oh, come on, come on," she cried to him, beckoning him in, "Hurry, before you drown!"

He got up, slipping and sliding in the mud, and ducked into her tent. They were laughing, as Kin shucked off his shirt and wiped the water from his hair and eyes. "Your boots!" Ella said, sternly. "They're dirty—you keep them away from me."

She gathered her flannel night-shirt up around her knees, away from the mud and the water. Then she became acutely aware that she _was_ only wearing her night-shirt—and that here was Kin, in her tent, alone with her, and bare-chested. His gaze fell on her pretty ankles. He smiled, and looked from her little feet to her face.

She blushed, but she would not take his bait. He wanted her to shout at him, and swat at him—or else he expected her to—but she would not. She met his eyes defiantly, challengingly. So what? So what if he had seen her ankles—and her legs—and if he was without his shirt? They were husband and wife, and besides—besides—

Kin gathered her in his arms and kissed her, gently, at first, but roughly and with more passion when he saw that Ella did not resist. No—she even kissed him back! Eagerly—oh, how eagerly! Oh, she had never felt this way before. What would Aunt Pittypat say, if she could see Ella now? Or Mrs. Merriwether—Mrs. Meade—India Wilkes? Or mother—what would Scarlett say? Ella did not care. She had never thought it was possible to feel like this.

They kissed until their lips were red and chapped, and then they lay down, each studying the other's face, looking at it hungrily, fervently, as if it was a map of some uncharted land that they must memorize, or else be lost forever.

"You have a spot—here—where your whiskers don't grow," Ella said, thrilling at it. The most commonplace of things—whiskers! But they were _his_ whiskers. She suddenly felt that she must know everything about him. Everything he had ever thought—or felt—or wanted, or liked or disliked, no matter how commonplace. She must know it all.

"One of your eyes is greener than the other," he said. "The left one." He leaned over and kissed her eyelid.

Her head was pillowed on his arm, and they lay cozily close together. The rain was a steady patter on the tent-roof. The sound of it lulled her, and Ella fell into a drowsy state, somewhere between sleep and waking.

"It's stopped raining," said Kin, his voice drowsy. Ella listened and heard nothing but a little drip-drip from the tent flap. So it had. She burrowed her head into his shoulder.

"Shall I go?"

"No," she murmured sleepily. "You can stay."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They ate breakfast on the road that morning, as they started off. Kin had a piece of cornbread in one hand; his other was tucked into Ella's. Buck pulled up alongside him and reined in.

"Ogallala in five days," he said, hopefully.

"Yup," grinned Kin.

Buck sighed, looking at their entwined hands. "You ain't going to be no fun anymore," he sighed.

"Nope," agreed Kin.

Captain Lexington pulled up by Ella. He lifted his eyes to the heavens at the sight of them.

"Xavy Kinnicut, get your ass up the line," he growled. "Meaning no disrespect, ma'am. But I didn't hire him for no rear-hand."

"Hold your horses, Captain, I've got to give my best girl a kiss." Ella lifted her face. "There, now, see? I'm going. Lorie, save me some grub at dinnertime, y'hear?"

"All right," Ella called, waving him off.

Captain Lexington shook his head again.

"I'm a damned fool," he said, "In my next life I won't bring no lovebirds along on my drive."

Ella gave him a brilliant smile—it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Then she spurred Mr. Butler into a trot, and raced up the line—up the line, to be near Kin.

END PART THREE


	30. Chapter 30

"Rhett! I say, Rhett Butler!"

Rhett had been lighting his cigar, and he saw no reason to stop what he was doing just because someone had called his name. He was so often recognized on the streets of New Orleans—he had not changed much since the days he had spent in the sweltering, headstrong place. He met someone from the old days in every lane—matrons of good families who had once feared he would marry their daughters—or not marry them, as the case may be. He met men he had cheated at the gambling table—and men he had taken down legitimately. Old friends—old enemies. Only the Scallywags and the speculators he had known had disappeared. Rhett saw none of them in New Orleans now—they had never been welcome and were no longer tolerated.

He threw the match carelessly down and took a few puffs of his Cuban before turning around, and when he did, he was faced with a fat, red-faced man with a pug nose and a smiling face. What little hair he had left was brightly, brilliantly red. He sat atop a matching horse—a fine, deep red-colored roan that pranced as he reined her in, restless, eager, blooded, and beautiful. Rhett could not stop himself from reaching out to stroke the horse's burnished coat—she was that pretty.

Having done that, he turned his face to her rider, and indulged himself in a broad grin of recognition.

"Why, it's Fletcher Collins!" he said, gripping the cigar between his teeth. "I haven't seen hide nor tail of you since we were run out of West Point together, back in '45. You look mighty prosperous, Fletch. I always thought you'd end up owning a railroad or something."

"And I always thought you'd end up owning a whorehouse," retorted Collins, good-naturedly, and Rhett's grin expanded. The man was not far from his mark. He reached out his hand and his old friend leaned down to give it a hearty smack. The red filly snorted and tossed her head, disdainful of their camaraderie.

"Well, what brings you to New Orleans, Fletcher? Business or pleasure?"

"A little of both," said Fletch, leaning back in his seat and crossing his hands complacently over his broad belly. "When you said railroads, you wasn't far off, Butler. I'm in the shipping business. We've started a Mis'sippi route last fall. Goes all the way up to Canady from the gulf. Wa-aa-all, I met a girl down here, don't you know. Cute little thing. I like to see her when I can."

"Thinking of marrying her?"

"Good Lord!" The man laughed. "I've got a wife and three sons up in Boston. Auggie, George, and Fletcher Junior. And a little girl. Elsie's her name. Sweetest thing to ever wear shoe leather."

"I don't doubt it," said Rhett, a brief, clouded look passing over his face as he thought of his own little girl. He pushed her to the back of his mind and stroked the mane of the red mare.

"This is a mighty fine-looking horse, Collins."

"Ain't she, though?" Collins smiled magnanimously, and leaned forward to pat her mane himself. The mare _was_ pretty—breeding showed in every line of her, from her proud small head to her delicate fetlocks. She was brightly, brilliantly red—Rhett thought suddenly of the red Georgia clay after the rain. How strange that he should carry a part of each place he'd ever been with him. How strange that he should think of Georgia with a pang, when it had been prison to him for so long. But then, New Orleans was no better. He was tired of it, he longed to be elsewhere.

The only problem was that he did not know where else to go.

He had been in New Orleans for two weeks now, and although the search for Ella had proved fruitless, he showed no signs of leaving. It was dangerous, Rhett knew—if he stayed much longer he would fall into a habit of being in the place, and would never leave it. And he did want to leave. Things were even slower in New Orleans than they were in Atlanta. The manner were more formal, the drawl more pronounced. It was just as respectable as any other place he'd been—and just as boring.

The folks had spirit, that was certain—but they weren't the sort of folks that Rhett was likely to mix with. He had too much money to be welcome in Vivi Tujague's saloon—and not enough manners to be welcomed by the gentle classes, and they didn't have enough spirit to tempt _him_. Ladies and gentlemen were the same wherever you found them—Charleston, Richmond, Atlanta or New Orleans—utterly dull and lacking any hint of spirit. Speaking of spirit—just look at Collins's little mare toss her shining head! She had tired of standing still and was eager to be on her way. She was a fine specimen, very fine, and Rhett's eyes took on a dark, acquisitive gleam.

"I don't suppose you'd sell me that filly."

"No, I wouldn't!" boomed Collins, good-natured as ever.

Rhett was not used to being told that he could not have something. His teeth gleamed in his dark face.

"You could name your price," he said. "It's been a long while since I've been tempted by a piece of horseflesh—and I haven't done so poorly myself, Fletch. I'll give you a thousand dollars for her."

"A thousand!" He laughed, but it was not incredulously. "A thousand wouldn't begin to cover what she's worth. When you hear what I had to go through to get her…"

"Do tell. You obviously want to, and I've got an hour or two to kill. You always were a long-winded fellow, Fletcher."

"Well, it's like this," he began, and Rhett settled back on his heels to hear the story. Fletcher always was an engaging sort. "I have a little oil business in Topeka—yes, I've branched out, and oil's booming, you know. Well, I was there, and I saw a man on a little red mare—just like you've seen me, here, today. We're alike, Rhett—we always have been. Lord! They used to call us two peas in the pod, don't you recall? I'll never forget the look on the old General's face as he was reading us the riot act. Lord! I'll never forget how he waved that finger all around at us. I had the urge to bite it right off when he stuck in my face. Ha ha ha!" He mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief, and Rhett waited patiently for Fletch to come to his point.

"Where was I? Oh, yes—Topeka. I offered the man a price for his mount—far more than you've offered me, Rhett Butler—and he turned me down. I don't like being turned down, you know. But he was firm. I saw finally that he wouldn't relent. 'Well, you might as well tell me where I've got to go to get a horse like that,' I told him. And he laughed at me!

"'You're going to have to go a far piece,' said he, 'All the way to Canady, for that's where I got her.' It wasn't Canady, but it might as well have been. Look, Rhett—there's a woman horsebreeder in Montana. Little town called Clayton. It's two bars and a horse corral and that's it. Well, this little woman owns a ranch there. Pretty little thing. She breeds these horses—red horses—'Tarletons,' she calls them. Well, I tracked her down—had to go all the way past the Powder river, and when I got there—"

"Wait a minute." Rhett stubbed his cigar out carefully—his hand had begun to shake and it took him a moment to crush out all the embers. A bell had gone off, somewhere in his head. "What's this you say about Tarletons?"

"It's what she calls her horses, the lady breeder. Because they're red, she said. She only breeds these red ones. I don't get it, but it must make sense to her. My, this sun is hot. I'm sweating like a cooked goose—and you don't look so well, neither."

Rhett waved away his concern with a hand that shook so badly he had to ball it into a fist and shove it deep in his pocket.

"I'd like to hear more about this," he said with great precision, and was annoyed that his voice sounded gruff with emotion.

"Well, there ain't much more. I bought the mare and shipped her back. The cost of it nearly killed me. I teetered a little—I ain't used to paying so much for a mount. But I dearly wanted this animal and I'd gone so far to get her I figured I might as well. Besides, I can afford it." Fletcher Collins swelled importantly—like a little toad, Rhett thought, and nodded to urge him on. It couldn't be…it couldn't…could it? Fletcher was still speaking and Rhett struggled against a dull roar in his ears to make out what it was that he was saying.

"…and I thought to haggle her, but I wouldn't have it said that I tried to cheat a widow. Pretty thing! I wouldn't have minded having her. Prettiest widow _I _ever saw. Don't remember her name, but if you're ever up Montany way (not that you might ever find yourself there) you should look her up. She lives on a ranch called…well, it's called Terra, or Tarry, or something odd like that. 'Mr. Collins, you treat my horse well,' she told me when I took my leave of her. 'Well, ma'am, it's my horse now,' I told her. 'It's my horse, ma'am, for I've paid you an arm and a leg for her.' 'God's nightgown,' she said. I remember it—I like an interesting turn of a phrase. 'God's nightgown,' said she, 'It's my horse. I raised her, and she'll still be mine no matter who else rides her.' Well, anyway, that's how I got my fine red mare. Call her Rosy, for her color. Ain't she red? Red don't even seem to be the word. She's not red, it's deeper than that. I guess you could call it mahogany—or crimson—or even—"

"Scarlett," said Rhett Butler. "Scarlett!"


	31. Chapter 31

Rhett Butler leaned back in his seat and watched the landscape fly by his window. St. Louis was behind him—he could still see the skyline on the horizon. The journey up the Mississippi by steamboat had taken five days—in another two, by train, he would be in Chicago. From there he would pick up the North and Western, and take it all the way west to Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, he had already booked a passage on a stagecoach—a stagecoach that would take him north to Montana. North, to Montana—and north to Scarlett.

He flexed his big hands in his lap impatiently. Now that the journey had started he could not wait for its completion. Good God, if she had to be anywhere, why must it be a thousand miles away? Rhett was not used to waiting. He had decided he wanted to see Scarlett—and so he wanted to see her _now_. He did not welcome delay.

He was not exactly sure why he wanted so badly to see her. He supposed he was curious. Scarlett—a horse trader? He would not have expected it of her—but then, she had managed the mills and the store to perfection. It was impossible to think of Scarlett doing things other ladies did. He wondered if she was happy.

He wondered what she would say when he turned up on her doorstep? For that matter, what would he say to her? He wanted to see her, and to talk with her again—but he did not hold out any thoughts of reconciliation. What could he say? There was so much they had left unsaid.

Well, he could figure it out on the way. He had the time. Time, time—he had too much of it. It was dangerous to have so much time on one's hands—stretching out, unbroken, in the distance.

He got up to go out to the smoking deck, cigar in hand, and nearly collided with a tanned youth. "Beg pardon, sir," said the boy respectfully, and stepped to the side. Rhett's eyes lingered on his form. He was a tall, good-looking boy, with a face that was bronzed by the sun. A wide ten-gallon shaded his eyes and his spurs marked him as a cowboy. The sight of him made Rhett think suddenly of his own son.

How old was the boy now? Why, he must be twenty-five, or twenty-six. Had he, Rhett, ever been that young? Life was new and fresh when a man was twenty-five. Rhett watched enviously as the cowboy made his way down the aisle and sat next to a group of other men, began to talk with them. How strong and powerful they looked, set against the stateliness of the other passengers. They were like young, untamed, wild animals, and Rhett suddenly felt very old and used up. Where had the years gone? For so long he had felt that he was above the years, untouchable by them, somehow. And now he found that the years were beginning to pass him by, and would not slow down so that he could catch his breath.

Out on the deck he gulped the air gratefully. Two days to Chicago—five to Cheyenne—and then another week to Scarlett. A week—two weeks at the most.

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The drive crossed into Nebraska, and suddenly things, which had seemed so slow, took on a heady, fevered pitch. Even the horses seemed to strain their necks toward the north. Two days to reach the Platte and then, by God…

"Ogallala!" Buck cried, pumping his fist in the air. The rest of the hands took it up like a war cry: "Ogallala!" Ogallala was the reason for the rise in spirits.

Even Cake began to look less glum at the promise of the pleasures of that place. In Ogallala, he told Ella, there would be liquor and card games all night, and dancing, and fine home-cooking—and whores. That was the most important thing. Tall whores, short whores, white and brown, old and young, blonde, buxom, beautiful whores. Ogallala was a cowboy's paradise.

To Ella, it sounded like a positive sink of sin and she turned her nose up disdainfully whenever anyone spoke to her about it. She was not looking forward to Ogallala, even if they other men were.

"Look here, it's heaven on earth," said Looky, trying to persuade her. "We'll stay for two nights—the Captain won't be able to make us leave before then. Look here, we'll raise hell if he makes us. And we get half-wages…"

"And you'll spend them before you've even earned them…"

"Why, what else should I do with them?" wondered Looky. "Wages are meant to be spent, after all."

Ella rode off in a sulk. She did not care about Ogallala, and felt put out because no one had time to pay her any attention now that the promise of town loomed large in the distance. Even Kin was busy. He consulted with the Captain about where they would put the herd while the crew was in town, and drew up schedules for night-watching that he knew would not be followed. In Ogallala, the rules of the trail did not apply. Let someone else do night watch, for a change! Life was too short, and there was only one Ogallala.

But he still found time to walk with her in the creek bottoms every night, and it was on one of those walks that he asked,

"Lorie—how would you like to have a honey-moon?"

"A honeymoon?" asked Ella.

"Yes—we could spend the night in a grand hotel. Think of it, little wife: a real honeymoon. A feather-bed—a wash-tub—some good food…"

Ella did think of it and flushed crimson at the thought. A feather-bed—with Kin in it. Oh, she was not without understanding of what a honeymoon would entail! And a bath would be heaven. She thought back to their first morning together in New Orleans when she had taken a bath and he had listened from the other side of the door. She knew that he must be thinking of it, too—for at that moment his eyes grew drowsy and gleamed with wanting. He pulled her to him suddenly and crushed her against his chest, and kissed her hotly.

He said, "Two days to reach the Platte and then…"

"And then Ogallala," smiled Ella. Suddenly she could not wait.

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Lank started accepting bets on whether Little Joe could be persuaded to have his first poke during their stay in town.

"The real question is whether the whores can be persuaded to have _him_," crowed Buck, and Little Joe shivered with embarrassment. He sidled up to Kin later that night, his hat in his hands.

"Mr. K," he said respectfully, "I wanted to let you know—I wanted to say—well, I wouldn't mind if you put me on watch for the time we're in town."

Kin, who had been settling in to sleep in the tent he now shared with Ella—in fact, she was even coming to think of it as 'their' tent—narrowed his eyes and regarded the boy thoughtfully.

"No," he said finally. "I don't believe I'll schedule you for watch at all."

"Sir?"

"What I mean, Joe, is that you should go into town. You're a young buck. And if you won't mind me saying it, I think you need to get out and have a little fun."

"But, sir…"

"What I really mean, Joe, is that I've put two dollars down against your getting it, and I don't intend to lose. Now skedaddle."

Little Joe went off miserable, twisting his hat brim and biting his lip. It seemed that all the forces were full against him, and he began to wish that there was no such place on the earth as Ogallala, and no such things in it as whores. If he did or didn't—well, either way someone would be out a chunk of change, and he'd catch it from some body. His prospects seemed grim.

"Maybe you'll drown in the Platte afore we get there," said Buck encouragingly, and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

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In the afternoon of the second day they forded the Platte and Ogallala loomed large on the horizon.

Ella could see great brick and lumber buildings rearing up against the wide prairie sky. How strange that such a huge town should stand in the middle of this vast, empty land! And such a bustling town. Atlanta, which was bustling in its own right, had only half its energy. Everywhere there were everywhere horses, everywhere people—and everywhere brightly dressed, gaily painted women calling to the cowboys, which followed them eagerly.

Ella had never seen so many cowboys in one place. It was a whole town full of cowboys. Her eyes were wide as they passed saloon after saloon, each crowded full of men in Stetsons and dungarees. There were cowboys singing, cowboys shouting, and cowboys brawling in the streets. Ogallala was full of cowboys, and the cowboys in Ogallala were full of liquor.

Captain Lexington turned the herd loose a little ways outside of town, and doled out half-pay with a benevolent air. He was in a good mood—his moustache, Ella noted, had been trimmed.

"Yall don't spend it in one place," he cautioned, grinning. "Now git, and try not to get kilt or arrested, y'hear?"

The crew dispersed, everyone heading toward the center of town, toward the color and music and laughter and sound. Everyone except Little Joe, who sat glumly on a stump outside the corral, and Ignacio, who crossed himself a couple of times.

"I pray for you," he growled after them. "Because, here—you need it."

Ella was more excited than she had been in ages. She had hardly gone two steps before she passed a shop window laden with pretty ribbons.

"Oh, Kin!" she cried. "See those pretty pink ones? Oh, I've got to have them."

Her rucksack was filled to bursting with packages within the hour.

"Now, I need a drink," said Kin, and he led her to the nearest saloon. "Being a husband is a thirsty sort of business."

He had a whisky, and Ella had one, too—grimacing as the amber liquid burned a path down her throat and spread in pleasing warmth throughout her body. They sat in on a card game, and Ella, who had often played whist with Auntie Sue found she also possessed a head for stud. She had beginner's luck, and won a heap of cash, a saddle trimmed with silver and turquoise, and a deed written on a napkin to two acres of farmland in Pitkin County, Colorado.

"Let's quit while we're ahead," whispered Kin, looking around at the sullen faces of the men who had been beaten.

"And while we're still in one piece," whispered Ella, gathering her winnings.

They had supper in a restaurant below what Ella suspected was a sporting house. The lady who served them was buxom and rosy and an unearthly shade of blonde. Ella suspected _she_ was in the sporting business as well as the restaurant trade. But she did not care. She had never seen so much good food in her life. Potatoes and corn and butter beans and biscuits dripping with butter and gravy—and beef, everywhere, beef. Beef steaks, beef ribs, beef tenderloin, and veal. Ella gorged herself, and ate as though she feared the food would be, at any moment, taken away. Kin sat back to smoke, and watched her with an air of amusement.

"It doesn't bother you to think that you're eating little Chuck's cousin?" he asked. Chuck was a calf that Ella was fond of. He was quite tame to her and would eat grain out of her hand.

"I wouldn't care if it was Chuck himself, I'm so hungry," she said, and reached for another biscuit. "The food's the best part of Ogallala."

She had to revise her opinion later that night, when she lay in her feather bed, in her fine hotel, the soft linen sheets smoothed over her body, and the moonlight streaming in through the window, lighting up Kin's sleeping form. He had his arm flung over her, and in sleep, he looked very young and vulnerable. All the hard edges had gone from his face; he looked no more than a boy. She kissed his face. Oh, _he_ was the best part of Ogallala! He was the best part of everything.

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The stay seemed to short. That was what Ella thought when she made her way back to camp, riding alongside Kin, her arm tucked though his. The morning was gray and drizzly. Their horses put their heads together and blew softly, whinnying to each other.

They were the first to arrive. The corral was deserted. Ignacio was where they left him, sleeping on the wagon seat. He might not even have moved since they had last seen him. Even the Captain was not back, and Ella giggled as she thought of the Captain with his woman, asleep in a feather bed, just as she had been only an hour before, with Kin.

She was packing her saddlebag when she saw a figure swagger into the corral with a self-satisfied air, hooking his fingers through his belt loops and stopping to look proudly and contentedly to the left and right. "Why, it's Buck, Ella thought, "Come to gloat over his conquests."

But to her surprise, she saw, as he ambled over, that it _wasn't_ Buck. It was Little Joe.

"Mornin,' Ella," he said companionably, as he swung his saddle over easily over his horse's back. He gave her a companionable grin. His stutter and stammer was gone, he did not blush or fumble. Ella stared at him, gape-mouthed, until she figured it out.

"Little Joe!" she cried, "You've been sporting! Oh, oh, you've done it!"

"'Course I have," he said, as though there had never been any question of it. "Four or five times, actually. Wanted to make sure I was doing it _right_. I had a blonde girl first—and then a brown-haired one—and then a red-head. Even threw in a Negro girl for a good measure."

He walked away, whistling, and Ella laughed.

"I've lost two dollars," she said, in mock-chagrin.

"And I've won two," laughed Kin.

"And we can't call Joe 'Little Joe,' any longer," she finished ruefully. "Somehow, it doesn't seem to suit him any more."

They rode out into the gray morning, and Ella was loath to leave Ogallala behind. It had turned out to be such a pleasant place—something to look forward to. When she looked back on it, she would always think that she had been sorry to leave Ogallala. She had enjoyed it so much—and things always seemed _changed_ after they rode away, and left it behind in the distance. Things would never be the same after that.


	32. Chapter 32

They rode due west from Ogallala, away from the city and the wide blue curve of the North Platte. In Cheyenne, the Captain said, they would be able to make up for their lost head of cattle, and from the place they would ride North to Fort Laramie. Then it was a curving, looping route through Wyoming to cross the Platte again, then Powder river. Then they would be in Montana. The whole trip would take thirty days—twenty, if they made good time.

Ella's blood ran a little cold when she thought about how soon they would be in Montana. As they crossed the Sand Hills of Nebraska into the badlands of Wyoming, panic rose in her throat, for she had not forgotten the true purpose of her coming along with the drive. She had come to find her mother. The drive had left in April—it was now well into August. And she was no closer to finding her mother than she had been when they set off, all those months ago.

She had always expected to find Scarlett—to find her early on, and to be reunited with her with much joy. It was the misguided confidence of youth—Ella was too young and fresh to think that her plans might end in defeat. She had not thought much past their initial reunion, and now, faced with the prospect of failure, she went cold with sweat and fear.

Ever since they had crossed into the town-land of Kansas, they had been looking for Scarlett. Every night when they had camped close in to the town, Ella and Kin had stolen a moment or two to ride in and make inquiries. They had met with some promising leads. In Leoti they had learned of that a Mrs. Kennedy ran the town's one general store, and Ella had been weak with joy until she found that Mrs. Kennedy was a fat, broad, silver-haired woman, with a thick Irish brogue and five or six children. Her husband was very much alive. She was not Ella's mother.

In Hays, they heard of a Miss O'Hara. She turned out to be a wizened spinster. She was not Ella's mother, either.

They ran across a washer-woman Butler in Dodge—and heard tales of Mrs. O'Hara who ran a boarding house in Abilene. Kin sent her a telegram, and they waited in suspense for her reply. It came—Mrs. George O'Hara, of Abilene, Kansas, had never been east of the Mississippi in her life. Ella's shoulders slumped, and they moved on.

They came across Mrs. Joneses of every shape and description—for that name had been Scarlett's alias in New Orleans. Mrs. Jones in Kimball was half-Indian and spoke very little English. Mrs. Jones in Sidney looked a lot like Ella's mother, with her shining black hair and green eyes—but she was, definitely, not Scarlett.

"Oh, you poor darling," she said, her green eyes growing large and limpid as she heard about their purpose in visiting. "My own mother was killed in the Sioux uprising in Minnesota back in '62. I was only a girl then. How I miss her! Dearie, I hope you find your mama. I bet she's missing _you_."

"I hope so," Ella nodded. They rode back to camp in silence. Ella was weeping, the wind scattering the tears on her face as they rode through it. For the first time in a long while Kin pulled the corner of his mouth down in displeasure. Ella knew he was not displeased with her, but rather with the mother who had abandoned her without a backward glance.

The voice of kind Mrs. Jones replayed in her head: _I bet your mama is missing you, too_. But suddenly Ella was not so sure. She thought that it was more likely that Scarlett had never looked back—and never missed her girl at all.

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Kin rode up to Ella one windy yellow evening, and Ella could tell by the gleam his eyes that he had news.

It was hot—terribly hot—too hot to think about sitting by the cookfire. Ella had been contemplating swim—until she found that there was a distinct lack of watering holes in this part of the badlands. They were still many miles off from the Platte. Oh, it was sweltering—too hot, even to enjoy bedding down at night with Kin. The two of them would strip down to their union suits—or even down to nothing at all—but they would not touch. It was too hot for that. It was too hot to even move, and Ella's spirits were as wilted as her hair.

But she perked up when she saw Kin looking like that. Kin never looked like that unless he had something important to tell.

"What is it?" she cried.

He would not smile—something in his face told her to be cautious, but he could not help the corners of his lips from turning up the slightest bit. "Lorie," he said, "Lorie—I think I've found her."

"Her? Do you mean—!"

"Your mother," Kin clarified, giving her hand a squeeze. "I was in Hillsdale, earlier, buying up some cattle…"

"Yes, yes." Ella waved her hand impatiently.

"Let me finish, you little spitfire. I was closing the deal with the trader and I said, 'Boy it's hot.' Just being polite-like, you know, Lorie? And he said, 'Yes, sir, it sure is.'"

"Kin! I don't _care_ what he said!"

"Hold on, Ella, and listen. I told him I'd give my hide for a glass of lemonade. And he said, 'Why, you should go over to Mrs. Hamilton's saloon. She makes the best lemonade this side of the world.'"

"Mrs. Hamilton!" Ella half whispered, half-screamed.

"Yes—Mrs. Charles Hamilton, because I asked, Ella. And I said, oh so casually—because I wanted to be sure, you know—'Does Mrs. Hamilton hail from Wyoming natively?'"

"And did she? Did she?"

"No, he said—she came out here five years ago, from Georgia, Lorie, she's from Georgia originally. That's what the man said."

"And did you go…"

"No, I came straight back here to you. I thought you might want to be the first to see her. I wouldn't recognize her, and she mightn't have wanted to tell her business to a stranger. We can leave in the morning, when it's cooler—"

But Ella was already running for her horse.

"We're going now!" she cried. Hope was high in her heart.

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They rode over to the town just as the sun was slipping behind the foothills to the west. Ella knew that beyond that were the great Rocky Mountains, and that they were a sight to behold. Kin told her he had felt like crying the first time he ever saw those mountains—they were so tall and proud and they seemed so far away and unreachable. Ella had thought at the time that the description applied to her mother, as well as to the mountains. Her mother was far away. But she seemed unreachable no longer. Ella dug her spurs into Mr. Butler's glossy black ribs and urged him on, harder, harder.

She was quiet, and when they slowed to a walk, Kin asked,

"What are you thinking?"

Ella was silent for a moment more. Then she answered,

"Oh—I was just thinking what I'll say to mother when she's right before me. Once I would have cast myself at her feet, sobbing with relief. Once I would have railed at her for leaving me at all. But now…"

"Yes?"

"Now—I think I'll just go up and hug her, and tell her, 'Mother, I'm so glad to see you.' The truth, Kin. It won't be anything but the truth."

"Don't get your hopes up, Lorie," he warned her. "I couldn't bear it if…"

But he saw it was like talking to a brick wall. Ella was not listening. She would not listen to any prediction of defeat. She pushed Mr. Butler into a gallop and surged ahead so that she would not hear his ill-omened words. Kin heard her singing 'Peg in a Low Back'd Car.'

Presently they came to the address the man had written out. It was hardly more than a shack, and Ella's heart turned over to think of her pretty, silk-clad mother living in such poverty. Her knees went weak when confronted with the oak-planked front door. Her mother was just on the other side of that door!

"You knock," she whispered to Kin, clinging on to him with both hands, as if she feared she might fall down and needed him to keep her up. "I can't—I can't. Oh, Kin!"

He knocked. For a sick moment, Ella heard nothing, and thought with utter despair that no one must be home. They had missed her—they had missed her! But then a footfall was heard, coming nearer, and a low, lusty voice was singing a ponderous tune. The door opened, and they were faced with a thick black woman. She wore a calico print and a white turban on her head.

"State yo' bizness," she said, not unpleasantly, and Ella's heart rose up further when she heard the low, soft, up-country Georgia twang in the woman's voice. It had been so long since she had heard that drawl. It brought tears to her eyes. Impulsively, she stepped forward, and fell to her knees, clinging to the woman's soft skirts.

"Please," she said. "Please—I am Ella Kennedy—and I am looking for Mrs. Hamilton. She's—she's my mother."

"Lawd, chile," said the black woman kindly, "Yo' mama ain't here."

"How—how do you know?"

"Because I'm Mrs. Hamilton," she said. "And honey—_I_ ain't yo' mama."

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Ella's head began to swim. She felt very far away. From a great distance she looked down on herself and saw as Kin and Mrs. Hamilton each took an elbow. She saw, rather than felt, herself being lifted up. There were no longer tears in her eyes. She felt empty of them—empty of everything. There was nothing inside of her but a dull, roaring feeling, that reminded her of the way the wind whistled down the empty prairie.

She was taken inside the dim-lighted shack and settled on a worn settee. Ella closed her eyes. She had thought she was so close! So close! And yet, she was no closer than she had been when she had started off.

Mrs. Hamilton was at her side, and was lifting a glass of something to her lips. Ella drank it gratefully, and was surprised at the taste.

"Lemonade," she croaked, and drank some more.

"Yea-uh—with a lotta sugar," said Mrs. Hamilton. And then, to Kin, in a lower voice, "And some brandy. She had a shock, huh?"

Her voice was low and comforting, and was not questioning at all. It seemed as though Mrs. Hamilton dealt with this kind of situation every day! But Ella wanted to explain.

"You see," she murmured, "My mother went away. And I've been looking for her."

Mrs. Hamilton nodded, she needed no explanation.

The three of them sat in silence for a long while, and Ella felt a warm glow start at her center and spread itself out through her body. Soon she felt strong enough to sit up; a little while after that, she rose shakily to her feet.

"I guess we should go," she said, and it sounded so bald and rude that she hurried to cover it with nice manners. She had not used her nice manners in so long, and was a little surprised to find she had not forgotten them.

"It was awful kind of you to be so nice to us," she said. "I guess—we'll just have to keep looking elsewhere."

Mrs. Hamilton, and the black woman put one great dark paw up against Ella's face.

"Chile," she said, with more compassion than Ella had ever heard. "Huccome you think your mama want you to find her?"

It was so quiet they heard the ticking of a clock on the shabby mantelpiece, and the clucks of the chickens in the yard.

"Seem to me," said Mrs. Hamilton, "She gone to great pains to _be_ gone. Honey, why don't you let her _stay_ gone?"

It was so like what Uncle Peter had said to her, once: _You gots to let the daid stay daid—doan go callin' their names and wakin' dems up. Let dem sleeps in peace._ Ella shook her head to clear it of the memory.

"I need her," she said simply, and felt Kin's arm around her. The two of them took their leave. Mrs. Hamilton stood in the door and watched them ride away. Her face was soft and there were tears falling down it. But Ella's eyes were dry.

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They stopped by a little creek to water the horses. It was too hot—it would be too cruel to ride them straight back to camp. Cruel, Ella thought, cruel. Her mother had been cruel. She laid her head in Kin's lap and he stretched his long legs out and stroked her hair. It was night-time now—the stars were out in earnest. Ella hardly noticed them.

Finally, she spoke, and it was in a poor, tired voice.

"I think we should stop," she said, and her words sounded so small and forlorn.

"Stop?"

"Stop looking for Scarlett, I mean."

He was quiet for a bit and then he asked,

"Ella—are you sure?"

She was not sure. She tilted her head and caught a glimpse of black sky—black velvet with icy diamonds scattered across it.

"I miss her," she said. "I wonder if I'll ever get over missing her. Kin, do you miss your mother?"

"No," he said, surprising her. "I never knew my mother, so I couldn't miss her."

She sat up to look at him, but his face was blank and impassive in the darkness. Ella leaned over and cuddled her head on his shoulder, and was surprised to find that it remained hard and rigid and unyielding. It almost seemed as though he would push her away. But then he sort of checked himself, and put his arm around her. The moment had lasted only a second and passed, but in it, Ella had made her decision.

"Kin," she said, "I'm going to let her stay gone, I think. Like Mrs. Hamilton said. She's been dead to me almost my whole life. I'm going to let her stay dead."

"But you need her." He was quoting her own words, and he turned and looked at her, and Ella recognized that old cat-at-a-mouse-hole look she had seen in him before.

"No," murmured Ella. "I don't." And as she said it, it became true. Scarlett had been a poor sort of mother to her, but she would have liked to see her. But she did not need her. She found that some ties had loosened in her soul, and she was free, finally free of something that had been holding her back.

She said, "I don't need anything—but _you_."

They stayed there a while longer, and then went back to join the camp.


	33. Chapter 33

"Anybody want to come on in to Cheyenne with me?" asked Captain Lexington, of the little group of men—and Ella—gathered round the campfire. "We need supplies."

His proposal was not met with much enthusiasm. Everyone stared dully into the flames or looked away.

It was raining—and the men were always grumpy when they had to sleep in the rain. The rain did little to cool things off. It was a warm, misting rain, and only made things seem hotter still. The air was so thick you could cut it.

A bunch of the men had begun to resent that Kin had a nice tent to sleep in every night while they had to wallow out in the mud.

"It ain't fair," remarked Lank. "Just because he's married don't mean he's better'n us."

"You shut up," said Tiny menacingly. "Kin's a top hand."

"So'm I," protested Lank. "I could have gone with Dub Gray's drive if I'd wanted—wisht I had."

"I wisht you had, too," said Flip. "Dub Gray don't stand for no nonsense. He woulda shot you dead by now."

"_He_ was only going to Ellsworth," said Lank, as though Flip hadn't spoken. "I could be on my way home by now. Durn Kin! I'm wet through already. Wish I had someplace dry to sleep."

"_And _he gets to sport all night long," said Cake glumly. Ella laughed at that, from her place on the grass a short distance away. She had a cool cloth over her eyes and had never felt less like sporting in her entire life.

Ella was recovering from a bad case of sun-burn. The storm back in Kansas had carried away her hat and she had forgotten to get another when last in town. Her whole face was puffy red and blistered. Her eyes had swollen to little slits in her face. Ignacio had mixed up a batch of some balm and he applied it to her face every hour—none too gently, Ella thought, but she was still grateful for his ministrations.

Ignacio surveyed the group of sullen cowboys with a disgusted air.

"I never see so many miser-able people in my life," he said, and stomped back to the wagon, where he began to pray his rosary.

It was true—the men were a dismal little group. They were still recovering from Ogallala and did not relish any more night-life so soon. Buck was still sulking because his favorite whore had gone and got married.

"I'm done with the frivolous creatures," he vowed, and he shaved his big, blonde, bushy moustache as a way of showing that he was serious. He sincerely regretted doing so—that moustache had been his pride and joy. He had cultivated it since he was a teen and he thought he looked pale and stupid and insipid about it. Consequently, he sulked.

Boots had been in a bad way ever since his own night of sport back in Nebraska. Every time he took a piss, he told the others—in great detail—it felt like his pecker would come right off. It was a serious lesson to the rest of the men about the perils of sport. Only Little Joe seemed up for it.

"I'll come with you, Cap'n," he said gamely, but Captain Lexington rolled his eyes.

"Sit your ass down, Joe," he said. "The last thing I need is another man pissing razor blades. I've had enough I can bear having to listen to Boots here moan and groan. Well, I'll be back in the morning. Try not to burn the place down, and you keep a look out, boys. There's some mean Indians in these parts. You turn your back for a second and they'll carry away everything that isn't red hot or nailed down."

And with a faint air of disdain for them all, the Captain turned and rode into town.

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Rhett sat in the saloon and nursed his whisky. He had asked for bourbon on the rocks, and the barkeep had laughed at him. They had neither bourbon nor ice in this part of Wyoming, it seemed, and Rhett had been handed a glass of neat whisky instead.

"It's that or nothing,'" the barman said, and Rhett decided he would rather have it than nothing at all. He slid a gold piece across the counter, and almost everyone in the bar looked up as the light flashed on its surface. There were plenty of greenbacks in Cheyenne, but no one had any gold.

"Hope you like it," said the barman, more respectfully, now that he had seen what kind of man it was that sat before him. "You just let me know if I can get you anything else."

"I surely will," promised Rhett. He sat back and sipped his drink, looking around the room at the people who surrounded him.

They were wiry people, tanned by the son, full of saddle muscles. Even the one woman in the place, who must surely be a whore of some kind, was lean and lithe looking. She reached up to arrange the combs in her black hair and her arms rippled with strength. Her dark eyes met his, challengingly. She was a far cry from Atlanta whores, who simpered and giggled and made pretensions to being ladies.

These people were all a far cry from Atlanta people—or New Orleans people. There was no one like _them_ in the South. They were as hard-worked and hardened as the poorest of poor whites—but they lacked the shiftless, dispassionate air of the true country cracker. There wasn't a lady or gentleman in the whole bunch. Curses rent the air, and the laughter was loud and real and honest. None of them were pretending to be anything other than what they were, and Rhett found it refreshing, for a change. Oh, he liked it here! Maybe he would stay a few days. He had just got off the train, and had no great desire to start moving again so soon.

Here, the people had more to worry about than idle gossip. Rhett listened to the twangy voices that filled the room. Everyone was stumbling over everyone else to be heard above the din. The men on his right talked about their crops. What would the price be for corn this fall? Of course there hadn't been enough rain—but the army was always in need of wheat and grain. Speaking of the army, what were the chances they would come down from Fort Laramie to quell the outbreak of mean Indians just to the south of town? The Crow and Shoshone had been making trouble there for a while now, and it was only a matter of time before their violence toward each other was turned and directed at the white folks and their families.

Rhett felt his skin raise up in goosebumps at the mention of Indians. Indians, real Indians! He laughed at himself. He was behaving like a little lad, like the kind of boy that Wade and Beau Wilkes had been, wearing feathers in their hat-bands and carrying makeshift tomahawks. He thought about how Bonnie had loved to play Indian savage, and his face darkened with memory.

When he had laughed he had looked like another person, but when he scowled he was more himself. So much himself that a man sitting across the room, with his own glass of whisky in his hands, caught sight of him and called out, "Why, it's Captain Butler!"

At the sound of his name, Rhett turned toward the man, who was grinning sardonically. His own face gleamed with recognition, and he turned to the barkeep and ordered another whisky. The man got up and stumped toward him on his peg-leg, and Rhett slapped his hand with true pleasure.

"Martin Lexington!" he grinned. "Why, it's been a long time."

"Yes, sir, it has."

"Have a whisky, Captain. I'm having one, and I like to take my liquor with a good Confederate when I can. It has been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Yes—seventeen years since we saw Johnston surrender in North Carolina. How you been, Rhett? You're looking a mite more prosperous than the last time I seen you."

Rhett waved away his words, grinning at the thought of their ragged army days. "You're looking pretty well, yourself, Lex. What kind of business you in these days?"

"Cattle."

"Really?"

"Yes sir—there's a fortune to be made in cattle. I don't suppose that's what brought you out west."

"No—I decided to come for the weather."

"Hot, ain't it?"

"Sweltering."

The two old friends drank in silence a while. Then Rhett said, casually,

"You know—my son is a cowboy."

He was surprised at his own words. He rarely talked about the boy, especially to strangers, and especially when he was not asked first. He never volunteered anything about him. Rhett could not explain what made him do so now. Perhaps it was that he was so reminded of the boy. There were cowboys everywhere. Perhaps it was that he felt like a dandy, citified and out of place in this wild western town. He wanted to show that he was a part of it in some way.

"I didn't know that," Captain Lexington nodded in a friendly way. "Is that so?"

"Yes—yes it is."

"Well, I must admit I didn't know you had any young'uns, Butler. I never suspected it of you."

"I never talked about it."

"Any other 'uns? Or just the boy?"

"Just the boy," said Rhett, with that same strange ache in his chest. He felt it every time he thought of Bonnie, he was used to it now.

"And he's a cow hand, you say?"

"Yes—I've heard. I haven't seen him in many years."

Captain Lexington tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as though a strange notion had suddenly come upon him. "What's your boy's name?" he asked slowly.

Rhett circled his hands around his glass and stared down into the liquid amber depths.

"Robert," he said, and the name sounded strange and foreign in his mouth, rusty from disuse. How long had it been since he had said the name out loud? He always had avoided calling the boy by his name. Perhaps he had not even said it since he had given it to him, all those years ago. "Robert's his name. Called Robert for my father."

Captain Lexington was nodding, and the strange look had gone out of his eyes. Of course it couldn't have been—well, many people looked alike. He nodded again, and with one brown hand, he picked up his whisky and drained the glass.

"I've got to get back," he said, sounding sorry that he must go. "I've got a couple thousand cattle and a half-dozen upset hands camped right outside of town. Taking them up Montana way, and must be getting back. Anyway, if you see your boy, you send him to me, y'hear? Tell him that there's always a open position with me for Captain Butler's son."

"If I see him, I'll tell him," Rhett said gruffly. "I surely will, Lex."

The men slapped hands once more.

"Montana," Rhett mused.

"Yes, sir. Going up past the Powder to Miles City."

"Montana's where I'm headed," Rhett said. "Maybe our paths will cross again."

"I do hope so."

"Me too, Lex. It's been mighty good seeing you."

The captain touched his hat brim and went out, and Rhett watched him stump through the yard to his horse. He swung himself up with ease, as though he himself was forty years younger than he actually was. Rhett thought suddenly that Captain Lexington did not seem like an old man. He did not look like one—and more than that, he did not seem to _feel_ old. He suddenly envied him, and at that moment Rhett Butler, with pockets full of gold and a bank account to match, would have given it all to trade places with the man—would have given all he had for a couple thousand cattle and a half a dozen hands—and the feeling that he was young, and useful, again.


	34. Chapter 34

Rhett Butler crossed the busy main street, ducking under the broad awnings to get out of the rain, and entered the post office. There he stood with his hat in his hands and regarded the callow-looking youth behind the counter with obvious distaste. The youth, for his part, stared blankly back. He was not used to getting customers in the middle of the day—and was not used to those customers being gentlemen in a three-piece black linen suit. They stared each other down, until Rhett gave in to his mounting impatience and spoke.

"I'm Mr. Butler," he said, and the boy, who had been staring gape-mouthed at Rhett's polished boots, closed his mouth with a snap. "I sent you a telegram earlier in the month."

"Yes, sir," the boy crowed, and rifled through his papers until he had retrieved that very telegram. "I remember it right well. We don't get very many wires in these parts."

Saints preserve us, thought Rhett, what kind of backwater hell-hole have I wandered in to? He balled his hands in his pockets, annoyed at the ridiculous position he found himself in. He was two thousand miles away from home—if he could consider Atlanta home, and he didn't, really. That annoyed him more than anything else. He was fifty-five years old, for heaven's sake, and at fifty-five years of age a man should have a place to call his home. He struggled to make his voice light and casual, and for not the first time that day, began to regret this fool's errand.

"If you remember the telegram, perhaps you will recall that I have booked myself a place on the Red Rock stage, to Miles City." It was an obvious request for further information, and the boy was at least quick enough to discern it. He ruffled his papers importantly, and found the one he was looking for.

"I have it right here," said he, "Mr. Rhett Butler, one seat on the Redrock stagecoach line from Cheyenne to Miles City. The fee is twenty-five dollars…"

"Which I had my banker wire to you. Everything should be in order."

"Yes—there's only one problem."

"What's that?" Rhett smiled politely, his blood seething. He was anxious to be on his way. The bustling cattle-town, which had seemed so new and exciting only a day or two ago, had begun to close in on him.

"Well, sir, you're a little early."

"Early?" Rhett wondered. "How early? When does the stage leave? Later today? Tomorrow?"

"In October," said the boy.

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"God damn it!" Junius Ford watched as the big, dark stranger swung his arm out and knocked, first, the green-shaded lamp off of the desk, where it smashed on the floor. Then he turned and faced the plank wall, and put his fist right through it. Junius cowered behind his visor, and wondered if the man would turn on him next.

But punching the wall seemed to have relieved his feelings. The man turned and faced him. He was struggling, Junius could see, to make his face appear calm, and with an effort, his voice became composed.

"I apologize," said Mr. Butler, and he tossed a ten-dollar gold piece onto the desk. "That'll by you a new lamp, with some left over to plaster the wall."

Junius nodded. Actually, there would be more than some left over to paper the wall. Old Jake would do that for a quarter. The rest he could pocket himself. Junius perked up—the surplus was more than he made in a month of operating the stage, post, and telegraph offices. Now that the violence had passed, he began to find the situation a little exciting.

Mr. Butler leaned against the counter, his broad form filling the space. His voice had become lazy and conspiratorial. Junius eyed him warily. He had often seen men who could sing sweetly in one moment and strike like a snake in the next. And usually they were likkered up. But Mr. Rhett Butler did not seem to be.

"What's your name, son?"

"Junius Ford," said Junius Ford.

"Born and raised in Wyoming?"

"Yes, sir. I've lived in Cheyenne my whole life."

"Isn't that something?" wondered Rhett, and the timbre of his voice had become sonorous and resonant. "Well, Mr. Ford, I'm in a bit of a pickle."

"You can call me just Junius, sir."

"You see, Junius, I need to get to Miles City, Montana, and I can't wait a month to start getting there. You look like an intelligent man—do you know of any other way I can transport myself?"

"I'm sure I don't," said Junius.

Mr. Butler reached into his pocket and pulled out another ten-dollar piece. He held it very close to his own face and studied it carefully. Then he tossed it in the air and caught it like a flash, and grinning, set it on the counter. The bargain hung unspoken in the air between them, and Junius decided to act.

He slid his hand over to the piece and grabbed it. When it was safely in his pocket, he said,

"The mail wagon."

"Begging your pardon?"

"The mail wagon," Junius repeated. "Twice a month we sond a cart filt with mail up to the army Fort Laramie."

"When does this wagon leave, Junius?"

"Well, I'll have to check—but I believe there's a load going out day after tomorrow."

"That suits me much better than October. Is there often a delay?"

"No, sir," said Junius. "The mail cart always goes out on time. You see, it's awful important for the army men to get their mail."

"I know that very well," said Mr. Butler. "I was an army man myself."

"Then you know that the army's very strict. They don't _usually_ allow passengers. But Mr. Tarkington's in charge of taking it, and sometimes he can be persuaded to bring somebody along. If it's an emergency."

"How much," asked Rhett Butler, slowly and carefully—and meaningfully, "Do you think it would cost to persuade Mr. Tarkington to take _me_?"

Junius Ford thought it over. Bob Tarkington was as poor as a peeling paint fence, and could be persuaded to sell his own mother for five dollars in gold.

"Ten dollars," said Junius.

Very deliberately, the Butler man reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another gold piece. He flicked it carelessly onto the counter, where it rolled down onto the desk and floor. There was a gleam in his eyes as he watched Junius scrabble for it, his fingers scratching the packed dirt floor until he found what he had sought, and picked it reverently up. Then,

"Let's go see Mr. Tarkington," Rhett Butler said.

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Rhett dried his face with a towel, and then studied his reflection in the cracked mirror over the washbasin.

It did not flatter, that mirror. The glass was wavy and distorted, and the light was poor. Every crag, every line, of his face was magnified, and Rhett curled his lip, and watched as the old man in the mirror did the same. He was dissatisfied, and thought for a moment how nice it would be to smash the damn' thing. It would be pretty pleasant to hear it smash. But the old bat downstairs would likely turn him out into the street for doing it, and Rhett didn't relish spending a night in one of the hovels that passed for hotels in Cheyenne. He settled for turning the glass to the wall, so that it could not tease him any longer.

One thing, at least, was settled. He would be leaving tomorrow next on the mail wagon to Fort Laramie. And Rhett was delighted to learn that the wagon would not stop there—but go on to Gillette, which was above the Platte. There was a doctor in Gillette who depended on supplies from the fort, and the army depended on Bob Tarkington to bring them. Whether or not that was a wise move Rhett did not know. Tarkington was a sallow, shiftless looking man, and Rhett did not think he could be depended on for much. But he supposed that made him a fool, too—for Rhett was depending on Tarkington to bring him to Scarlett.

In Gillette, Bob Tarkington had assured him, he could buy a horse, and from there it was only a day's ride to the Powder River—that is, if Rhett rode hard. And Rhett did intend to ride hard. He sat down on the edge of his bed and reached into his briefcase. He pulled out a worn sheet of writing paper, and turned it over in his hands.

The letter was not from Scarlett or to Scarlett—it did not concern Scarlett in any way except it had had been in her possession, once, and she had left it when she had left her old life behind. Rhett had found it tucked between the pages of a novel he was sure that Scarlett had never read. The letter was as familiar to him as an old friend—he had read it over that often.

He knew it was very wicked to do it but he did not care, of course. Melanie Hamilton (for some reason, he hated to think of her as 'Melanie Wilkes') would not have approved. The letter belonged to her, after all—the treasured letter of a husband to wife. Rhett was not entirely sure how the letter had fallen into Scarlett's possession. It must have happened after Melanie had died—for Melanie would never part with such a cherished keepsake when she still had life in her. No—she must have left it to Scarlett, to give to Beau when he was old enough to appreciate it—or some such sentimental nonsense. Or else Scarlett had stolen it. Either explanation seemed equally possible when confronted with the enigma that was Scarlett O'Hara.

Rhett pictured how it could have happened—Melanie, receiving the note, would have read the first line and put her hand to her throat, her gentle brown eyes filling with tears. She would have risen in a rare frenzy of emotion. He saw the letter fall from her lap to the floor, forgotten in her sudden joy.

He saw, too, Scarlett's calculating green eyes flash—saw her hand grab for the fallen page. Perhaps she had tucked it in her breast, carrying the words against her flesh. Rhett saw her red lips curve in a smile as she read it over after that, as she congratulated herself on having saved it—as she tried to justify her act, and convince herself there was nothing wrong in keeping what did not belong to her.

He saw her so strongly that Scarlett was in the room with him, then—he heard, like the faint chime of a bell, her quick, cruel laughter, and felt the sting of her cutting words. He blinked, and she was gone. Rhett smoothed the letter on his knee, and read aloud the words that Ashley Wilkes had penned, once upon a time, when the old world was in its death throes. Words Ashley had written to a woman who was his wife—words that had been treasured by a woman who was not.

"'Beloved,'" he read, "'I am coming home to you.'"


	35. Chapter 35

The rain, which had started in Cheyenne, did not let up all the way to the Platte river, and all the world seemed wet through.

Ella's teeth chattered, even though she was wearing a wool sweater and her thick sheepskin coat. September was still summer in Georgia, but in Wyoming, they were deep into fall. She had been surprised that morning to come out from her tent and find frost on the grass. In the first day of riding north, she was sleepy and disoriented, for she had slept poorly the night before. She thought she was dreaming when she saw, instead of raindrops, soft white flakes begin to fall before her eyes.

"What?" she wondered. And Kin said that it was snow.

Snow! Ella had never seen snow before in her life. She was astonished at it. The wind whipped the small snowflakes into a frenzy. She held out her gloved hand and tried to catch them, but they melted before she had a chance to get a good look.

"You'll see plenty of that in Montana," grinned Kin, and a significant glance passed between them.

Ella and Kin had discussed Montana in their tent, at night, for a few nights running. Now that they were not hell-bent on finding her mother—and now that they were really, truly, husband and wife, Ella had started to wonder about their future. She could not see herself going back to Georgia. And Kin did not seem to want to go back to New Orleans. His lip curled when she spoke to him about it.

Captain Lexington was staying on in Montana, and Kin thought that maybe one or two of the other hands would stay with him, and help get the ranch up and running. Boots, maybe, or Tiny.

"And we could stay, too," he propositioned.

Ella thought about it. It was curious to feel so utterly free that you could decide to go anywhere or stay anyplace on a whim. "I won that deed to the land in Colorado," she reminded him. "Two whole acres. Remember?"

Kin smiled.

"It would take more than two acres to hold me in a place," he said. "I need land, Lorie. I need to be able to breathe. I want to be some where new and fresh. I told you that before. Why don't we stay in Montana a while? For a year maybe, to get the lay of the place. Cap'n will hire me on as his right hand—I can manage a ranch. And we could see if we like it."

"And would we live on the ranch, too?"

"Yes—to start out. A snug little cabin, just big enough for the two of us. And maybe a homestead of our own, if we decide to stay."

Ella was thoughtful.

"I think it sounds nice," she said after a moment of reflection. "Let's do it."

Kin kissed her, and she snuggled in his arms.

"You don't still want to divorce me?" he joked, referring to their original plan. Ella shook her head at her own foolishness. How stupid and blind she had been, to even suggest such a thing!

"Never—never."

So that was settled down. The only thing was that Buck could not be convinced to stay on in Montana, too.

"It's too damn cold," he said, shivering, his teeth chattering and his lips faintly blue. Buck had been raised in the hot white sun of South Texas. Here, he was all wilted and puckered, like a magnolia blossom after the first frost.

They tried every trick to convince him. They begged, cajoled, and pleaded—they spoke of the good times and new, interesting whores that could be found in the north. But Buck could not be persuaded.

"Whores don't have the same sway over me that they once had," he mused. "I've lost my taste for them. I think I'd rather have a little woman who was all my own, instead."

Kin and Ella exchanged a look. This was not like Buck.

"But what will you do, if you don't stay with us?" wondered Ella, and Buck shook his head, looking very young without his moustache.

"I don't know," he said, sounding faintly bewildered—like a child who wakes to find that the world has tilted on its axis over night. "I don't know, Ella—I just plumb don't know."

This was not the Buck she remembered from New Orleans. Something was different about him. Kin felt it, too—she could tell. His mouth twisted and he touched his spurs to his horse and surged ahead. Ella followed him.

But Buck hung back, and did not join them. When Ella turned she could see him, growing farther and farther away, until he was no more than a speck on the horizon.

Things were changing.

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Ella was disappointed in her first snow—it melted as soon as it touched the ground, and was soon gone. Within a day, it turned back into rain.

Not a little, drizzly rain, but a heavy downpour. The ground was waterlogged and it slowed them down. Everyone was pretty dismal at meal-times. They could not get a fire going to cook with, and had to subsist on tinned pork and beans.

"I'd rather eat my shoe than eat this slop," commented Flip.

"Let's eat Ignacio," suggested Lank. "He ain't been earning his keep anyway, lately. What's the use of a cook who _can't_ cook?"

There was no singing and laughter, and everybody dispersed. For the first time, Ella felt really guilty for her nice tent, as she watched Little Joe and Looky huddle under a damp tarp.

The whole world seemed changed by rain. The sky was not blue but flat and gray. The grass was brown and dead from too much water. Whole clumps of earth had been washed away. Ella was most surprised when they came to the Platte. In Nebraska, it had been a wide, shallow, placid river. Here it was rushing and foamy, brought over its banks by the deluge. It was not gentle and shining, but roaring and swift and menacing.

At first she could not get Mr. Butler to step into it. She puzzled at him. He had forded so easily before, even at the deep, churning Red. Once she had whipped him into the water she understood why he had balked. The current was rough and treacherous, tearing at her legs, pushing them downstream. The water was cold—first it foamed against her legs and burned like pins and needles, and then it numbed her.

She clung on for dear life. When they had crossed the South Platte, Mr. Butler could walk easily across. Here, it was too deep. He had to swim, and Ella cried out as the current began to carry them far downstream. If she fell off she would be swept away, and, strong swimmer though she was, she knew that she could not stand a chance in this rough water.

She breathed a sigh as her horse's hooves touched the river bottom again—with effort, he hauled himself up onto the bank, and stepped onto the dry land. She dismounted and patted his neck.

"Good boy," she said, and turned to watch the river.

The cattle were crossing now. Ella saw that they had finished caulking the wagon—it was ready to float. For a moment or two it bobbed dangerously like a cork and she held her breath—surely it would overturn, surely it would be swept away. But soon it, too, was rattling up the bank. Ignacio crossed himself in thanksgiving.

She held her breath as Kin crossed, but he did it easily. Far away at the back she could see Buck's white charger, bringing up the rear with Little Joe. The cattle were all almost across now. She took her eyes away for a second, to watch Kin as he talked with the Captain. When she turned back, all hell had broken loose.

Somehow, Little Joe had fallen off his horse and was clinging desperately to the saddle. She heard, above the sound of hooves and water, him call to Buck, who tried to swim his horse toward him. But his horse would not go. Little Joe and his mount seemed so small as they bobbed in the middle of the wide, rushing water. They were still in one place—hung there for a moment. And then the merciless current began to carry them. In a second he was twenty yards downstream. They were battered against the rocks. And Little Joe lost his grip on the saddle.

She watched in horror as he went under, once, and cried out when she saw him reappear, alarmingly farther away. He went under again.

"Help him, help him!" she screamed. "He can't swim, oh, he can't—the current's too strong!"

Ella heard Kin shout and she saw him run toward the river and she wished she had never said anything. Kin must not go into the water. He, too, would be swept away. Little Joe broke the water to gasp and claw frantically at the air. And, for a third time, he went down.

He did not come up again. There was a scuffle as Captain Lexington tried to hold Kin back, but the other boys were already charging into the river, forming a chain of bodies against the rapid water.

"Where is he?" sobbed Ella, frantically scanning the water. "Where is he, oh, where is he?"

It seemed forever before she spotted him. Little Joe was floating facedown in the water. The current lazily carried his body to a little, calm eddy in the shallows where it circled and circled like a piece of driftwood and no more.

"Please," she thought, and it was all she could think, for her mind had gone as numb as her feet.

Kin and Buck hauled him out, and the water fell in a slick from his limp, heavy form. Little Joe's lips were blue and his eyes were wide and staring.

The Captain and Kin worked over him for a quarter of an hour, trying to pound the water from his chest and breathe air into his lungs. All the time Little Joe started unseeingly at the vast gray sky. They could not help him—he was dead

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They buried him in a field half-a-mile away, where the rushing river could not disturb his grave. It was a pretty field—still dotted with buttercups which had survived the frost. Little Joe would have liked it, Ella thought. He was always so appreciative of things like trees and flowers.

Even the Captain cried as his body was lowered down. Buck was sober, his face and eyes red from weeping.

"Why, it was my fault," he told Ella, over and over again, until she wanted to scream. "I twitted him about drowning—don't you remember? Before we reached Ogallala. 'Mebbe you'll drown in the Platte,' I told him. Ella, I couldn't help him—damn my stupid joke. He has drowned and I couldn't help him, though I tried."

"I know you did." She tried to comfort him, but her own grief was too raw.

"He was just a little mite. This was his first drive. He had his whole life in front of him—hadn't hardly begun to live yet. Only just had his first poke. Just a boy, just a boy. It should have been me instead."

"Don't say that!" Ella cried, but Buck turned away from her. The rest of the men dried their tears and went back to the herd with heavy hearts, but Buck would not be moved. He stayed when the rest of them had gone, staring down at the makeshift little cross, and thinking things that he did not venture to put into words.


	36. Chapter 36

Rhett had escorted many a precious cargo in his time. In his early, wayward years, he had often made ends meet running contraband rum from Cuba to the Florida Keys. In the war he had filled his ships to bursting with cotton and sailed them perilously through the blockade to England; on the return voyage he had doted just as carefully on the English goods—meat and cheese and bread and munitions—and lady's fashions, which fetched an even higher price. He had even, on one hair-splitting voyage, ferried a large sum of Confederate gold. As General Johnston's right hand man, he had carried papers of surrender and a white flag to the Yankee camp at Durham.

And now here he was, sitting on the tongue a one-horse plank cart bound for Fort Laramie, with nothing more behind him than a heap of months-old letters, Montgomery Ward catalogs, and hair tonic circulars.

His companions on other voyages had been one step up from pirates; his fellow travelers now were of a more stolid sort. Bob Tarkington was a fat, red-faced, self-important man who drove the mule with a heavy hand and believed that, in bringing the mail out from Cheyenne, he was only one step below the archangel Gabriel in pomp and glory. He sat next to Rhett and sweated so profusely in the hot sun that Rhett found the suit of his black linen suit was soon cold and clammy with the other man's perspiration.

Behind them, squeezed on a plank between the tongue and the canvas, sat a young woman with long, dark, plaited hair and sad, slanting eyes. Her skin was evenly, lightly tanned, and Rhett began to wonder if she had gone out one to many times without her bonnet, or if she was some half-caste daughter of a poor white and Indian. He began to think he would never learn the actual truth of her origins, for she was not disposed to rattle on like so many other women that he knew.

The girl was dressed in faded calico, and barefoot. She spoke not a word as Rhett climbed up and seated himself next to Tarkington, and doffed his hat in polite respect in her direction. She glanced away, at the line of purple mountains on the western horizon, and moved her eyes up, to take in the vast expanse of blue sky overhead. Then she turned back to him, and fixed her eyes on the middle distance. She looked through him as though Rhett were a pane of glass, and he started in some surprise as he noticed a baby, strapped to her back. It was swaddled to its neck and Rhett found it impossible to discern the baby's sex. It shared the girl's dark, sad eyes, and her silent disposition.

"That thar's Margot," said Tarkington, wiping his sweaty face on a bandanna that was already so sweat-drenched as to be completely useless.

"I had not anticipated the pleasure of a female companion on our long journey," said Rhett, and made her a courtly bow from the waist.

She no more acknowledged him than she would have acknowledged a whisper of wind from the mountain valleys, or the sun that played in and out of the clouds overhead. She did not move; it was as if he had never spoken.

"Don't mind her," Tarkington said. "She's an idiot. She ain't never had no more than half her wits. Hain't you, Margot?"

The girl did not move. Rhett regarded her curiously; Tarkington noted his curiosity.

"You can have her for a fiver," he said shrewdly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's usually ten," Tarkington clarified. "That's what I charge at the fort. She makes a good turn up at the fort, does Margot. Them boys ain't seen hide nor hair of a woman in months. They'd jump at any fe-male, even a pug-ugly one as her. I tried her in Dodge a while ago and the hands wouldn't have her. But she's worth her weight in gold, here. We been together three years, hain't we, Margot?"

"Do you mean she is your whore?" Rhett wondered.

"No," said Tarkington, with open contempt. "I mean that she's my wife. Hup, hup."

He flicked the reins casually on the mule's thin back, and they rumbled off.

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It was three days to the fort, and they made camp the first night outside of a little circle of shacks and tents that Rhett initially thought was a camp like their own, but learned was a town in its own right, called Chugwater.

The thought that this smattering of lean-tos was a town was laughable. Rhett did laugh, and Tarkington watched him, beady eyes glittering.

"Laugh if you want," he said, "But last year when I was up this way, there was one tent. Six months later, half a dozen. This time next year, there'll be two dozen. You'll see." He turned from Rhett with a wounded air and distributed mail importantly to the thin, washed-out folks who croweded silently around, hands out and waiting.

Later that night, as they ate tinned beans around the little fire, Tarkington told the story of how the town had got its name.

"Long ago," he said, "Some lazy red Injun got the idee that instead of hunting the buffalo, they'd drive 'em off of those white chalk cliffs. When the buffalo hit, their stummicks busted, and they went, 'chug!' That was the sound. Them Injuns named the place for it."

Rhett received the story in silence. The woman—Margot—was nursing her baby from a short distance away. Her faded calico dress was open to the waist and her bare breasts gleamed like polished copper in the scant light. She, too, had been listening to the story.

She spoke for the first time.

"Those buffalo," she said carefully, and put her baby down on the ground. She laid down beside it and fell asleep.

Rhett awoke in the cold, pale gray dawn to find them both already waiting on the wagon.

"Come on," Tarkington said, and Rhett got creakily to his feet and climbed aboard. In the half-light of dawn they took their leave of the place. In the daylight the shacks and shanties looked even bleaker than they had in the forgiving evening darkness, but Rhett could suddenly see that there were signs that the pioneers were eking out a living, and winning the struggle against the land. Garden patches of corn and wheat were carefully tended, and a wagon-track out toward the copper mines in the mountains was lined with timbers. He felt a sort of awe come over him at the sight of these improvements. Think of Atlanta, when it had been Terminus! When the first spike of the railroad line had been laid down, it must have looked like this miserable place. Think of the empty delta-plane of the Mississippi, when Joliet and Marquette had first sailed their furs on barges into the wetlands! There was no telling what this town would become in time, and Rhett suddenly felt hungry to see it in a year—a dozen years—a hundred. All this land! This empty, wide plane of land, crying out for someone to till it, and make it grow!

Rhett had had everything he had ever wanted his whole life except for land. Oh, he had owned a whorehouse or a saloon or two on a crowded lot. But he had never had _land_—to cultivate, to change in to something. Think of it—he had a pocket full of bank notes, and more in the bank. He could have land of his own, stretching to the horizon—Butler land! Something to leave behind, when he was gone. He had nothing else. Rhett laughed.

"I sound like a peasant Irishman," he thought, and then, ridiculously, "I sound like Scarlett!"

He thought of her crying out time and time again that land was the only thing worth fighting for, dying for. Her mad desire to make Tara produce—her fierce pride when it did. He had fought alongside the Confederates without really understanding what it was that they were fighting for. For the first time, Rhett understood it. It had started out as a way to preserve their old way of life—slavery, states' rights, and King Cotton! But at the end, the bitter end, it had been a fight for the land.

He had been a vulture at the falling down of one civilization—he suddenly wanted very much to be a hand in the building up of another. Everything he saw took on a new light and gleamed with possibility. 

Margot and her baby looked back at the town until the shacks were a dot on the horizon, and then turned their sad, unblinking eyes to the north. But still Rhett looked back—dreaming.

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"Are there any Indians around?" Rhett wondered, surveying the flat, grassy country. He had heard talk around the saloon of mean Indians, savage, bloodthirsty Indians, who inhabited the badlands. But he had not seen any person, red or white, since leaving their camp the day before.

Tarkington made a sound in the back of his throat.

"If it's an Injun you want, you need look no further," he said, nodding significantly at the woman on the seat behind. Margot did not acknowledge his look. Her eyes were fixed on Rhett's broad, black-clad back, but she was not really seeing it. When he turned around to look at her, she met his eyes, briefly, and in their depths he saw all the hatred and bitterness and pride of her race.

"Pretty little Injun girl," said Tarkington. "I took her from a tee pee myself. Stole her away. You want her?" he added hopefully.

Rhett hesitated, and in the silence he heard the creaking of the wagon wheels, and felt the girl stiffen. His hand went suddenly to the waist of his pants, where he had tucked a pair of silver pistols. He thought for a second how nice it would feel to take the barrel in his hand and beat the butt end against the face of the loud, crass jackass on the seat beside him. Then he heard the girl make a low sound like a sigh in the back of her throat. She looked up at the sky again, and Rhett took his hand away, and left the pistols where they were.

"I don't want her," he said. "I was just wondering."


	37. Chapter 37

Rhett's own army days were like a distant memory. When he thought back to them he had a vague notion of pervasive hunger—of days that were dark at five o'clock—of bearded faces flickering in the firelight and muted voices talking. He remembered walking barefoot in snow, the sudden, desperate energy in the calm before a charge, and the all-encompassing weariness in the calm after, while the numbers of dead were tallied and the wounded men were moved out.

He had forgotten so much. He had forgotten words like duty, rank, and organization. He had forgotten the pleasing crispness of a well-rendered salute, the sharp staccato voices that barked out orders and delegated tasks. He looked around at the fat, rosy faces of the soldiers at Fort Laramie. They were enjoying their service more than he had his. These men had been children in the war between the states—there was no war now. There were not even hardly any Indians to bother them. Fort Laramie had about it the air of a man who has lived—who has seen the fur trading of the '30s, sheltered white settlers in the '40s, quelled the Indians in the '50s and '60s. By 1890 the railroad would creep across the west and the fort would not be needed anymore. But for now the army still ruled, and the days and nights at the fort still had a well-regulated beauty and order to them.

Rhett enjoyed his time there. He enjoyed smoking and listening to the boys' chatter. It reminded him of his own young years at West Point. Those had been the best years of his life, the prime and he had been loath to waste them taking orders from someone else. Now he thought that if he had not closed his mind off to them, his life might be different now. He might be the one giving the orders, and his later days would have taken on the clean, orderly shape of usefulness. He might have been a General in his own right—a tall, strapping, young-at-heart general, who was listened to and obeyed.

All too soon the paltry pack of mail had been distributed, and the cart loaded up with medical supplies, and bound for Gillette. Tarkington was talkative, full of news he had learned at the card table. Margot was even more silent than she had been. Rhett had heard her cry out several times in the night, from his pallet in the guest quarters. He supposed that Tarkington had gotten his ten dollars several times over for the use of her.

They were half a day out from the fort when Tarkington exhausted his speech—he became sulky. He was always sulky after visiting the fort. No matter how much money Margot had made, he always thought it should have been more. Rhett spoke to fill the silence.

"I was in the army," he said. It was not information he usually volunteered. He had hidden this secret from so many of his fellow townspeople in the south. But now he was eager to let someone know that once he had been useful—once he had been young, and useful! Tarkington narrowed his eyes, momentarily diverted.

"I suppose you mean the Wa-a-r," he drawled. "See any action?"

"Yes—I was at the second battle of Franklin."

"Well, so was I," said Tarkington, sounding mildly hurt, as though Rhett had suggested he was, in fact, not there.

"I beg your pardon," Rhett said easily, unwilling to provoke the cruel little man into a blacker humor. "Which battalion did you serve?"

He himself had served under General Hood, with a brief stint commanding cannon for Pickett.

"I was Schofield's man," said Tarkington.

Schofield! Rhett found he was sneering a little. A Union man. Well, he might have expected it of this little beastly tyrant. Then he laughed. What did a dead battle of twenty years ago mean when they had both come through with their skins, and were not in the north or south any more? He was about to say as much to Tarkington, but in the silence that had fallen, the man had moved on.

"I say, Margot," he was saying, "Forty dollars ain't bad, but we could have had more. We should have let them two have you at once. They offered twenty for that. We should you have let them."

"No," she said quietly. "No."

Tarkington's teeth gleamed in his mean face—his hand shot out like lightning and there was a crack like gunshot. The girl's dark head had snapped back—when she lowered it again, blood showed on her face. It made a lazy river over her lips and down her chin and neck, settling in the pool of her collarbone, staining the collar of her dress.

Tarkington stopped the wagon by a creek bed.

"Go wash," he told her. "You ruin that dress and I'll have to buy you another."

She climbed down and ambled off unsteadily toward the water. Rhett followed, on the pretense of getting a drink. He cupped water and brought it to his lips, his dark eyes following her movements. She took her shirt waist over her head and submerged it. She was naked from the waist down, the baby squirming in the tall grass beside her.

She wrung the cloth and spread it on the grass to dry a little. Rhett sat back and watched as she crossed the creek to the other side and gathered a pile of flat, white river stones. Her smooth brown hands arranged them a distance away, in a pattern like a cross. The tip of the cross pointed to the north west. She came half-heartedly back, and pulled her still-damp shirtwaist over her head.

"I'll kill him for you, if you like," Rhett said and her own lips turned up in the first genuine smile he had ever seen her give.

"There is no need," she said, glancing at Tarkington, who was still seated on the tongue of the wagon. He was picking his teeth with a straw and gazing out toward the horizon.

"No need? He treats you like a dog—worse than a dog."

"My people will come for me," said Margot certainly, and strapped the baby to her back.

"When?" he wondered.

"Soon. I have been leaving them signs."

Rhett's eyes went again to the white stone cross, hidden in the tall grass. Then he followed her back to the wagon.

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They made camp for the night by a scanty grove of cottonwood trees, with the shadowy purple mountains to the west. Tarkington was talkative again, full of plans as to how he would spend his hard-earned money. He thought perhaps he would go in for a joint-venture in a copper mine east of Wheatfield. There was a fortune to be made in copper.

Rhett half-listened, nodding at the correct times. With his eyes he watched as Margot played with a bundle of sticks. This time she made two crosses, pointing to the north-east.

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Margot's people came for her the next day, at dusk.

One moment they were riding along under the gently sloping sky, and the next they were at the center of a flurry of brown dust, with moving shapes on all sides.

Rhett recoiled as the dark shape of an Indian atop a wide-barrelled pony leered down on his left. His hand went to his pistol at the exact moment that he heard a pistol discharge. He looked over and saw that Tarkington was slumped in his seat, his mouth gaping. There was a wide, red stain on the front of his shirt.

He looked back toward the girl, but her lips were not curved in a satisfied smile as he thought they might. Her brow was furried, and she was looking back at the circling braves.

"What? What?" Rhett wondered.

"They are not my people," she said.

Rhett whipped the frightened mule into a frenzy and the distance between the Indians and the cart widened as they picked up speed.

"Who the hell are they, then?" he growled.

"They are Sioux," she said. "I am Mandan."

There were the high ringing sounds of bullets whizzing past.

"May I shoot them, then?" Rhett questioned.

Margot nodded, her eyes fearful.

"Shoot," she said. "And kill them. For they were surely kill us if you don't."

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They abandoned the wagon and Tarkington's body and cut the mule loose. Rhett scrambled on its back and pulled Margot and the baby after them. He kicked the mule as hard as he could and they galloped off across the wide badlands. He took the other pistol from his belt and pressed it into her hand.

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Yes."

"Good. You take that and shoot if you see them behind us again."

But the Indians seemed to have disappeared. Rhett could no longer see them on the horizon. He gave a great sigh of relief.

"If I was a Papist, I'd cross myself," he said. "They seem to have given up."

Margot shook her black head.

"They are not gone," she told him positively. "They are waiting."

And Rhett suddenly saw with horror that she was right. The dark shapes of the braves appeared on the horizon to the south and he heard their blood-curdling cries piercing the air.

"Shoot, damn it!" he shouted at her.

This kept up for the rest of the afternoon. The braves would appear, shoot, and disappear—before reappearing again with dogged determination, seemingly out of thin air. For the first time in many years, Rhett tasted adrenaline on his lips. His body worked at it was supposed to, a well-oiled machine. He turned to shoot over his shoulder and gave a cry of surprise and delight as he saw one of the braves slump in his saddle, and fall off. His hand had been steady, his aim had been true. He had killed him.

They got to a river bed as it grew dark, and huddled there, against the steep bank. They did not dare a fire, though the night was cold, and Rhett could see his breath coming in puffs of white frost. His stomach rumbled with hunger and he was annoyed. The baby began a thin piercing wail.

"Shut it up," Rhett told Margot. "Or else they'll hear it and know where we are."

Her lips curved.

"They know where we are," she said.

"Then why aren't they coming after us?"

"They are waiting for the right moment."

"And then? When they find us?"

"They will kill us," she told him. "For we have killed one of theirs."

"What can we do?"

"Wait," Margot said.

They huddled against the river bank as the moon rose. Margot nursed her baby, but her eyes were alert. Rhett felt his heart pounding in his ears as he pressed his body against the soft earth and waited. He held his pistol at the ready and wondered if he would live through the night to morning.

It was strange—he was not sure he would live through the night to morning, but for the first time in a long while, Rhett Butler felt _alive_. His hot blood ran through his veins with vigor. He should have been weak with fright, but he wasn't. His hand clenched around his pistol and he almost sobbed with joy.


	38. Chapter 38

"We need a plan," Rhett said.

From the movement of the stars he supposed it was about three o'clock. The sky in the east was still pitch-black, but it would not be for long. Soon the faint light of day would give their position away. And the braves that circled and circled on the bank overhead would come down and kill them.

Rhett wondered how many of them there were. There had been three, before. He had killed one. That left two. In the still darkness he could hear them talking in their strange, melodious language. Two voices. He supposed there were two of them yet.

But that was two Indian braves too many. Rhett listened hard, in hopes that he would somehow be able to make out what they were saying.

"Can you understand?" he whispered to Margot.

She sneered at him. "I do not speak Sioux."

Rhett lay back against the steep riverbank, out of reach of the light of the high, white moon.

"We need a plan," he said again.

He looked out over the river. It was clear and wide at the point where they lay but narrowed a little ways off as it cut through two tall bluffs. From the lip-edge of the cliff was a long way down, to the place where the river rushed over jagged, dangerous rocks.

They were hidden in a copse of sparse trees, but the land on the other side of the river was wide and unbroken and empty. If they crossed and tried to run, there would be no place to hide. They would be easily seen on the flat empty expanse. They could not run away—but they could not stay here.

Margot followed his gaze as he keenly went from the prairie to the cliffs and back again. Her eyes lingered on the high bluffs, and went to the rushing rocks below. There was suddenly a sharp, luminous light in their depths.

"What?" he asked, as he watched her.

Margot made a gesture toward the cliffs.

"Chugwater," she said. "Think of the buffalo."

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Rhett thought that Bob Tarkington had been the worst sort of man—cruel, ignorant, and good for nothing. But he may have saved their lives with his stupid prattle. He and Margot leaned their heads together and whispered for a long while.

"All right," Rhett said suddenly. "Let's try it."

"They may not know the cliff is there," she said. "They may not know the land. They are far away from home."

Rhett smiled. "It's this or nothing. And anyway, perhaps I can lure them close enough to shoot."

In the darkness he skulked to the south-facing cliff and began to scale it. His footing was sure and steady, and he almost laughed until he turned and saw that the jagged rocks were very far away. The moonlight glinted harshly on them. If he fell he would be dead before the current could sweep him away.

He found a foothold at the top of the cliff and held himself there, waiting for first light. His legs burned and his arms ached. It seemed a long while before the horizon was tinged pink with the first faint stains of day.

Rhett waited until the whole of the sky was pearly with new light before he pulled himself up on his aching arms. He stood just below the cliff edge, on a little rocky ledge, and looked. The braves were still circling downriver, near the place where Margot and the baby hid. He unbent his aching knees and shouted to get their attention.

"Hey!" he hollered, waving his arms and teetering dangerously. "Over here, you red sons of bitches!"

The Indians turned as one and headed toward him. Rhett ducked down again as he heard their guns fire. He crouched and put his head up, aiming and shooting. His hand was shaking from being still for so long. The braves raced toward him.

Suddenly, they were almost in front of him. He saw the brave up close for one long second, his brown, savage face, leering cruelly down. He smelled the scent of sweat and earth and cured meat. All at once the man's pony stopped still at the cliff edge. The brave went racing over his head and over the cliff. Rhett saw him fall to the rocks below, where his body was buffeted and twisted by the white water.

"Think of the buffalo," he murmured.

The other brave gave a startled yell and pulled back on his harness to stop the horse. He did, right on the cliff's edge. But he was not quick enough. Rhett leapt up and over and onto the grassy cliff-top and put his gun in the man's face. There was an acrid burst of smoke and the Indian brave fell sideways. Half his face was missing.

Rhett Butler stood in the new light of day, and felt the grim, ebullient satisfaction that a man can know only when he has snatched back his life from the jaws of death. He walked unsteadily downriver, until he saw Margot's face peeping over the bank.

"It's all right," he called, and his voice sounded very loud on the empty plains. "You can come out now."

She was over the bank in an instant, running toward him. "They are dead?"

"Dead as those buffalo," Rhett told her. "They didn't go 'chug.'"

She gave a sigh, but then her face darkened and she gestured to his shoulder. Rhett looked and saw a dark stain against the linen of his coat. He was surprised. He had not even noticed he was shot.

"It's all right," he assured her. "Flesh wound. And don't we have a wagon full of medical supplies a mile or two away?"

She shook her head. "Don't go back. Go to the town. It is just over that next ridge."

"All right." Rhett felt lazy, and amiable. He wondered if it was the shock of loss of blood that made him feel that way? He pressed a handkerchief into his wound and loped off toward the two Indian ponies, grazing at the top of the bluff.

He mounted the tallest one and sat stiffly up. Margot followed suit.

"Coming to the town with me?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Where will you go?"

"To find my people." She made a sweep of her arm in a southerly direction. Then she leaned to clasp his hand and her dark, sharp eyes glittered with something akin to gratefulness. She held out her pistol, as if he should take it.

"No," said Rhett. "You keep it—you may need it again."

She said something in a low, singing language, and turned to ride toward the south. She was a strong rider. Her skirt was hiked up and her brow, strong legs gripped the horse's side. She was a different girl than she had been before.

Rhett watched her until she was almost out of sight. When Margot had rounded the curve of the earth and was gone, he turned his horse's head and clicked to start him going. Then he rode off in the opposite direction.


	39. Chapter 39

Buck rode out of camp one evening and returned in the morning with a woman on his saddle.

She had a flat, brown face, partly hidden by her ragged black hair. Her eyes, looking out over the camp were cold and dispassionate. She had her arms around Buck's waist, but seemed to be arching herself rigidly backward and away from him.

"This here's Margot," Buck said, helping her off the saddle with all the politesse of a courting gentleman. "Come say hello to the boys, honey."

Margot took two steps backward instead of going forward to meet the interested throng. Her face screwed up in disdain and she whirled to hide a sudden, hard light in her eyes. As she did, a general cry of alarm went up among the curious hands.

"She's got a papoose!" cried Cake, so stunned that he sat down hard on the ground.

"Look here…" said Looky weakly, but he had nothing to say after that.

Kin's face grew stern as he took Buck by the arm and marched him a little ways off toward the chuck wagon. Buck was already trying to explain.

"I was doing the night-watch and she come up out of the river bottom. I thought it was some old brave or something. 'Stop or I'll shoot,' I said. Well, I saw it was this little lady, and I felt right tender toward her. 'Climb aboard,' says I. 'I'll take you to a nice safe place and get you some victuals.' This ain't no place for a lady to be on her own. You 'member those three blood-curdling Sioux we passed on the road. Stop lookin' at me like that, Kin. I couldn't leave her. And she had the little 'un—"

"We can't take her along, Buck."

At this Buck grew indignant. His skin flushed under his tan.

"And why not?" he wanted to know. "You're a pot calling me black, Kin. _You_ brung a girl all the way from New Orleans."

"Yes, but that's different."

"How?"

Kin spread his hands wide and looked helplessly at his friend's angry face. He could not explain that Ella was a lady—that one could tell that by looking at her. She was not some ragged, half-breed with a baby. There was a faint, almost dangerous air about this squaw.

"Ella is my wife," he said simply.

"And Margot's going to be my wife," Buck snapped. His tone became wheedling. "Look, Kin, I'm going to take her along, and we're going to set up house in Montany. Just like you—mebbe we'll be next-door neighbors. I thought you'd be happy for me, Kinnicut." He looked so wounded that Kin almost relented, and bit back what he had been about to say.

"The Captain ain't going to like another woman coming along," he said finally. "Especially one with a papoose."

But to their surprise, Captain Lexington only shrugged. He had been sobered by Little Joe's death. It was bad luck to have a death so late in the drive, and of a young hand, too. They were deep in the badlands, and water was scarce. To top it off, some of the cattle had developed a mysterious rash and would not drink, when water was found. He was past caring about things like women.

"As long as we get to Montana with our heads, I don't care," the Captain said ominously. He slapped his hat against his thigh, and rode off among the cattle without so much as a backward glance at Buck's slanting-eyed Indian woman and her baby.

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Ella had many times longed for the companionship of another girl during the long dusty months of the drive. The women of Tara had often sniped at one another, but in Atlanta, she had noticed that most young ladies of her age and position had other young ladies that they took into their confidences. She had watched with envy as Vangie Whiting and Lulu Picard strolled up and down Five Points, whispering into each other's ears, and giggling about beaux. Now that she, Ella, had a beau—a _husband_—of her own, she sorely missed the enjoyment she might get out of discussing him with other females. And, oh—her sheltered mind positively craved information. She was so eager to know certain things. Did other girls feel the same way as she did when _their_ beaux held them—kissed them? She was not entirely ignorant of certain other things—but her information was scant, and she longed for a girl-friend that she could open her heart to.

How much easier those first few lonely weeks might have been had there been another girl on the drive! Ella might not have felt so conspicuous, then. Another slender, womanly form might have lessened the heavy burden of being the only one of her sex in a large group of men. Another girl could have borne some of the jibing and innuendo.

And now, here was Margot.

Ella could tell at a glance that Margot was not like other girls. There was a hardened, flinty look in her face and something behind her eyes had been dulled down—by what, Ella did not know, and had she realized, she could not really fathom. Margot was a ragged, inimitable figure. She neither sought nor rebuked conversation. Her eyes were always roaming, searching the horizon and her shoulders were always slumped because what she was looking for never seemed to appear.

She cared for her baby in a matter of fact manner that belied the myth of maternal tenderness. When it was wet, she changed it—when it was hungry, she nursed it—but she always strapped it back to its swaddling board soon after. She never caressed it, or murmured delighted words into its ear—thing that Ella thought she should certainly do if she had a baby of her own.

Margot did not seem to like Buck very much, which was strange—for hadn't Buck picked her up off the plains and brought her into the group? Buck was full of plans for their future. He said he would build Margot the grandest house above the Powder, with fine carpets and satin drapes. He grandly invited all the other cowboys to be houseguests when they were settled. He began to talk about the huge, expensive party he would throw when they were married. Margot neither encouraged or discouraged this kind of talk. Buck threw his arm around her and chattered happily, and though she stiffened, she did not pull away.

She ate very little, and stared into the fire while nursing her baby. Ella crept over in an attempt to be friendly. After all—the girl couldn't be much older than she was. Buck was her friend—so Ella should not shy away with being friends with his woman. Should she?

"Your baby is darling," she said shyly, because she couldn't think of anything else to say. In truth, she thought the baby was rather unsettling. It never smiled, but its large black eyes never blinked. Ella had begun to have certain ideas of what babies should be like. They should smile and gurgle and make sweet babbling sounds. Yet Margot's baby never did.

"What do you him—or her?"

Margot made a low musical sound in her throat in a language Ella did not understand. She pushed the baby into Ella's arms and buttoned her shirt. Ella stared down at the child and appreciated the sweet, solid weight of it in her arms. She might have tickled it to make it laugh, but she could not stop her eyes from following its mother.

The cowboys who did not have night-watch were gathered a ways away playing cards. Ignacio was singing his hymns to the Virgin. Margot was roaming around in the trees. Ella watched closely as she bent down and arranged a little pile of pebbles—neatly, in an intricate pattern. Then she turned and fixed her eyes on the southern horizon.

Something about the way she did it made Ella's blood run a little colder in her veins. Margot was so watchful—waiting. She thought suddenly that perhaps Margot never mentioned her future with Buck for a reason—namely, that she was not planning on having a future with him.

The Indian girl came back to the fire and picked up her baby, and strapped him to her back. Ella watched, from lowered lids, as Margot watched the flames dance and flicker. Her eyes were carefully empty, but her lips had curved into a smile.

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It was a cold night—bitterly cold. Ella had never seen such a cold night in all her life. She was glad to snuggle down in her tent and to cuddle her body next to Kin. He was drowsy, half-way between sleeping and waking, but he smiled, and put his arm about her and drew her near. Ella knew that it was late—that she should sleep—but somehow she could not. She closed her eyes but she still saw things. Margot's hungry eyes, as she looked toward the south. A slim band of white pebbles, coiling northwards. Margot's veiled look as she gazed into the fire. Buck's face—Buck's dear, happy face, oozing enthusiasm at every pore.

"Kin," she said suddenly, "Do you think that that girl—that Margot—will make him happy?"

He shifted in his sleep.

"Not as happy as you've made _me_, sweetheart."

He kissed her head and drew her closer. Still—Ella could not sleep.


	40. Chapter 40

That night, Ella dreamed her old dream.

She had not dreamed of it in such a long time—she had thought, gratefully, that perhaps she never would again. The possibility of it had once haunted her during her waking hours, pursued her, looming just ahead like a darkening cloud.

But the cloud had gone away with the advent of Kin. She was loved and kissed and petted and adored, and at night she dreamt of wishful hopes for the future or was too tired and well-loved to dream at all. The old nightmare was forgotten. It was a part of her old life, and her old life was over with—only her bright, beautiful future was before her.

And just when she was least expecting it, the dream came back—with a vengeance.

It started out the same as always. In her dream, Ella was running—running faster than she ever had before in her life. Her legs burned with it—her chest was on fire. Her heart beat madly, crazily. She could not catch her breath. It was night, and she was running through a sleepy town. Doors were barred against her, and the windows were blank and empty. They glinted like dead eyes in the cold moonlight.

There was the pervasive feeling of being the last living being on earth—of utter terror—and utter loneliness. Oh, if only the stars did not seem so bleak and far away! If only that horrible red moon did not hang so low down in the sky! It was close—too close—she thought that the terrible pressing moon would smother her. She felt as though she were in a strange, heartless, alien land.

She heard her own voice scream for help, as she had done before, in the same dream. In this dream, she stumbled, and when she looked down, she saw a dark, wet smear of blood on her hands that frightened her so that she screamed again.

"Help me! Help!" she cried, and then suddenly she was awake, sobbing into Kin's chest.

"Hush, honey, hush." He rocked her and soothed her but she sobbed, clinging to him. "Was it your old dream—that nasty old dream? Darling, don't you worry. It's only a dream."

But Ella could not believe that. It had seemed so _real_, so immediately frightening. She cried with real terror in her tears, and not even Kin's comforting presence could dissipate the awful sinister feeling of that dream.

Not even Kin could make it go away.

"Because you weren't there," she choked, between her sobs.

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Rhett stayed in Gilette for a week. The doctor that treated the wound in his shoulder said that he should stay longer, but he could not be persuaded. The stifling feeling that had haunted him in Atlanta was gone away, and Rhett's old humor had returned. The doctor who was summoned found him in the town's one saloon, drinking whisky and paying compliments to the bar-maid, a linen handkerchief fashioned into a hasty bandage for his streaming shoulder.

"You were lucky, Mr. Butler," said the old doctor, as he rooted in the wound for the fragments of the bullet. "It's splintered your collarbone."

"You call that lucky?" Rhett was sardonic. His face was twisted with pain and he poured sweat in rivulets. But it was cleansing—purifying, somehow. Each twist of the knife—each touch of the tender flesh—reminded them that he was wonderfully, gloriously alive. He had never expected to have to deal with this kind of pain again—just to be poked and prodded by Dr. Meade until he expired ignominiously. By God—he was too old for cowboys and Indians. And yet, here he was, with the pieces of an Indian bullet being drawn out from his body, one by one. His adventurer's spirit thrilled, even as his rational mind told him he was a damned fool and had better leave this sort of nonsense to the young people.

"Another inch and you'd have bled to death," said the doctor waspishly and Rhett laughed.

"One inch in the opposite direction and it would have missed me entirely." His teeth gleamed in his face, which had shed its sickly grey pallor and browned nicely in the sun and wind. "Patch me up as nicely as you can, doctor, and do it nice and quickly. I'll stay for three days, and no more."

"You'll stay for a week, right here, and my little Jennie will wait on you."

"Five days—but I can't stay longer. I've got to get to Montana—and see a woman there."

"Time and tide and true love wait for no man," intoned the doctor wryly, and Rhett laughed again. He had beaten back the tide, and struggled against time, but true love? True love?

"I don't know what's true anymore," he told the doctor cheerfully, and found he didn't really care. Things that had seemed so important, once, scarcely seemed to matter in this new, brave land. Great, philosophic musings on truth mattered very little in the face of raw survival. And Rhett did plan to survive.

"Whatever is thrown at me," he said, and it sounded like a toast. He raised an imaginary glass. "I'll take whatever's thrown at me—and more."

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One blue, blustery afternoon, the news went up that they would cross the Powder by nightfall. Tomorrow morning, they'd wake up in Montana.

"Montana!" the cry went up, and the hands cried, "Montana!" Ella tried to rally along with them but found her teeth were chattering so that she could not speak.

She had sleep poorly the night before—really, every night since she had started to worry about Buck. Kin snored softly through the night but Ella tossed and turned and her brow puckered with worry. If only she could find some way to put her worries into words! But she could not explain, even to herself, what it was about Margot that made her so uneasy, and so she kept her thoughts to herself. They niggled at the edges of her brain, all through the long dark hours, and she tossed and turned and could not sleep at all. What should she do? What could she do?

"I'll think about it—tomorrow," she said, but it sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Lying awake was almost better than the times that sleep did come. When she managed to snatch at sleep, the dream came back, and each time it was more vivid and horrible than the last time she had dreamed it. She woke in a cold sweat, holding her hand against her rapid-beating chest. She was terrified to sleep—she must not dream it all again!

She had a vial of laudanum from Ignacio and she began to place two or three droplets on her tongue every night before going to bed. But the dreams that came were more frightening almost than her old dream. Horrible, snaky flashes of memory that twisted in her mind and mocked at her. She returned the vial to him. She did not want it.

She began to steel herself to lie awake, pinching the soft skin on her legs and arms when she felt her eyes begin to close.

She was tired—she supposed that was what made her head go round and round and her vision blurred. Or maybe it was because she was cold. It was so cold—she was not used to it. She felt cold deep in her marrow bones. Her thick sheepskin coat could not keep the wind out.

And yet in the next moment she was sweating. She wanted to tear her at her clothes. She was so hot—she could not breathe.

It went on like that. Cold and then hot—she was treacherously cold—and then she sweated and moaned, because she thought she must be burning alive. Her cheeks alternately bloomed crimson and then paled. Her eyes darkened with fever and the pupils grew large and black, even as she shook and shivered with cold.

Where was Kin? Somewhere up ahead. She felt strange, and wished her was here. Her throat ached, but when she tried to sip from the canteen, it burned her throat so that she thought she would cry from the agony of it. Her hand shook so that she spilled her water. What shall I do now? she thought giddily. What shall I do? She dismounted, her joints aching, and walked dazedly to the wagon, which following behind. The ground seemed to rise up and fall away with every step so that she stumbled and reeled. She knew she must be a sight. Everyone must think I am drunk, she thought, but she didn't care.

Ignacio saw her and reined in, and his brown face took on a terrified look. "_Dios Mio_!" he cried, and he forgot to cross himself in his haste in leaping down and chafing her icy hands in his own, callused ones.

Ella wanted to say, Don't worry, there's no need to worry, but she could not summon the words. Besides, she was not sure it was true. There were suddenly two Ignacios before her, and her head swam. Round and round, round and round she went, and her legs went out from under her. She closed her eyes and could not open them again.


	41. Chapter 41

Ella was conscious of something soft and yielding beneath her. A delicious softness—her mind searched for the sensation—a feather bed! She was in a feather bed. She could have moaned with the pleasure of it. She was in a feather bed and her head was on a real pillow, and soft, soft linen sheets were covering her.

For a moment she was disoriented. She thought that she might be back at Tara, and her heart beat with panic to think that perhaps she had dreamed it—all of it. Atlanta—New Orleans—the drive—and Kin! Oh, please, God, let her not have dreamed _him_. Let him be real!

She pulled her eyes open with real effort and gasped with relief to see that she was in a small room, with rough plank walls, and a fly-specked window. Kin was staring out of the window but at her first happy cry at seeing him, he turned and came and knelt by her, burying his face in the bedclothes. When he raised his face she saw that his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.

"The poor dear!" she thought, with a wild burst of feeling, "He's been crying! But oh, I wonder what has made him cry?"

And then she remembered—the sickening dizzy spells, the chills and sweats. The world going black. Oh, he had been _worried_—about her! Her hand found his amid the folds of the quilt and she squeezed it, feebly.

"Darling," she croaked, and at that word he looked as if he might cry again.

She wanted to ask where was she? And what had happened? But she could not get the words out. Kin's eyes flashed; he seemed to know what she was thinking.

"You've a cold, sweetheart, a nasty cold. Ignacio thought it might be flu or pneumonia but he was wrong—thank God! It would have been an eensy-weensy thing except that you were over-tired—we've been traveling at a grueling pace. We're in the house of a nice woman called Mrs. Johnston in Sheridan, just this side of the Wyoming border. She's an old friend of the Captain's, and has said you might rest here for as long as it takes."

Ella found her voice. "The drive?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Has gone on ahead. We'll join them when you're well enough. Buck and Margot—"

"They're here?"

"Yes—Buck's been half-mad since you fainted on the road. He was the first to reach you—he said—he said that you looked half-dead. So white and still. Ella—when I saw him galloping toward me I thought—I thought that—but you're awake now, and you will be better soon. Buck and I carried you here. He's downstairs with Margot and the baby. We'll all wait together until you feel stronger, Lorie, and then we'll go."

She wanted to ask many other things, but just then a round, solid, sonsy woman came in with a bowl of broth and made her drink a few spoonfuls. She submitted weakly to the treatment and just sipping a little made her so weary that she fell back against her pillow and was half-asleep in seconds. Mrs. Johnston bustled out, but Kin stayed. Even in her sleep, Ella could tell he was near, and his presence soothed her. She felt his hands on her hair as she drifted away again.

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The whole town of Gillette turned off to see Rhett off. He had been in town for only a little while, but they so rarely had visitors, certainly not visitors such as this intriguing, black-eyed roguish Southern gentleman, that he had soon become a great favorite amongst the townsfolk. Visitors, male and female, flocked to see him out of curiosity, and stayed out of a true liking for him.

The ladies came in little groups and questioned him fiercely about city fashions. He had been come from New Orleans, by way of Chicago and St. Louis—how were they wearing their skirts, their hair? Rhett described the ladies apparel in such great detail that they gleamed with pleasure. The polonaise was back "in," he told them, and bustles seemed to be quite the thing. He had seen many ladies wearing chokers, and he had been told it was in emulation of the Princess of Wales. The bonnets he had seen had wide, curved brims, and bangs were still being worn, with the rest of the hair pulled back at the sides and worn in a low knot, with clusters of ringlets.

The ladies hung avidly on his words, delighting in his attention to detail the way Confederate women had done twenty years before. The only difference was that these ladies, in their faded calicos and ginghams, had neither the means nor the desire to _be_ fashionable, themselves. Hard work dictated against it and money was tight. But they got great pleasure from hearing about the things that they did not have and did not need.

"He's better than Godey's Lady Book," said Jennie Walker, who was proud of her fascinating houseguest.

"You wimmin let the man alone," chided Doctor Walker, when he passed by the room and found the ladies crowded on his bed, listening to the story of poor Bob Tarkington's demise. Rhett was smoking a pipe and several other women pulled cheroot cases from their garters and were smoking as well. Rhett delighted in them. They were not the delicate flowers that Southern women pretended to be. These women made no façade. If they wanted to sit on the bed with a strange man, they did, and thought nothing of it. If they wanted to smoke, they smoked, and they cursed and bickered and laughed, great, roaring, _real_ laughter spilling from their lips.

Jennie Walker took to sitting with him as he ate his breakfast. She liked to talk to him, and Rhett found that he didn't mind listening. Jennie was a new sort of species of young person to him. She had a quick mind, unsullied by any feminine training. Her mother had died when she was small. Jennie did the cooking, the washing, the mending, and all the sundry household tasks. She handled a gun and an axe as deftly as other girls plied their needles and fans. She hoed the cotton patch and held the basin for her father while he operated; she could sew up a gash with thick black thread as deftly as the doctor himself. She was matter of fact and direct, and Rhett admired her. She was the exact age that Bonnie would have been if she had lived, and Rhett thought with dissatisfaction that Bonnie would have seemed such a white, soft, pampered thing besides this hardy, capable girl. Even with all her spirit, she could not have compared to her.

"I like you, Jennie," Rhett told her frankly. "If I was twenty years younger I'd take you away to Dodge City and ravish you."

Another girl would have fainted or slapped her face for such rash talk. But Jennie just giggled—it was her dream to go to Dodge City one day, her fondest wish, that she had imparted to 'Cap Butler' in a rare quiet moment. "And I'll have three new dresses and a pair of high heels," she sighed, imagining it out. "And I'll live in a two-room apartment, and maybe have a horse of my own."

It was such a modest aspiration that Rhett felt his eyes pricking. Three dresses—a pair of shoes—a dingy, fly-specked, little apartment in a muddy, dirty, crowded town. How different she was from Southern girls! How different they all were from Southern folks!

In the quiet moments, when Jennie was busy in the yard and the doctor was away, Rhett found himself thinking of Scarlett. He supposed she must be more like these people, now, than she was like him. But he could not imagine Scarlett—proud, silly, vain Scarlett—making ends meet in mended calico. He thought that Atlanta disdained her for the very attributes that would endear her to these people—her sharp tongue, her simple forthrightness, her keen business sense. He thought about the hundreds of other girls like her, who were bent into proper shape and fixed up with Southern trappings, always being watched like a duck out of water. What a waste of a good, quick mind! How sad that they should be born there and not here, where they would have been valued, instead of broken down and remolded into something ornamental, and not very useful. He felt a deep longing to see her—something low and soft, that vibrated in his innermost places, like a string being plucked. He wanted to see her—he needed to see what she had made of herself.

"Beloved," he thought, "I am coming home to you."

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The men of Gillette might have disdained Rhett for his feminine knowledge of fashions and furbelows, except that they couldn't, though they might have tried. Several times during his stay Rhett Butler lifted the doctor's bed-rest edict and wandered down to the saloon to drink and play cards. The men of the town found him a formidable opponent, and pushed their hats back on their heads in frank admiration. They were adept in the language of stud games, but Rhett taught them a complicated four-card draw that won their approval and delighted them, just as the tales of hats and buckles had enchanted the ladies.

Each man had a story to tell, and it was evident that these stories had been told over and again in gatherings such as this. Rhett listened with real pleasure and even volunteered a few stories of his own. He spoke of his time in the gold fields of California, and the men eyed each other knowingly. So that's why he could afford to lose so much in every game! They did not know that Rhett was loath to take their hard-earned money—he had so much, and they had so little. They were poor—and proud, but Rhett was such a skillful player that he managed to lose while making it appear that he was trying not to.

Before he left Rhett went to the general store and purchased several pairs of high-wale dungarees, cotton shirts, a buckskin jacket, and a pair of marvelous leather boots that were much better than his patent loafers for riding. He surveyed himself in the mirror, turning this way and that. All his life he had been wearing tailored, expensive things—why had he never noticed before what a dandy he was? He moved easily in his new garb, and his face looked hard and brown and lean under the brim of his new Stetson.

"You look real natural in that get-up," said Jennie, and Rhett felt as vain as a peacock.

He traded his Indian pony for a fine thoroughbred and bought a saddle and provisions. The men of his new acquaintance were only too happy to help him map his route. He would ride north to the Powder, and then west for ten miles to the little town of Clayton.

"If run into a mountie you've gone too far," they laughed. "Best turn around after that and head back."

Rhett took his departure with real regret, shaking the hand of each man, and kissing each woman. He paid the doctor in gold and pushed a few greenbacks into Jennie Walker's boot top.

"Save that—for when you get to Dodge," he told her.

She kissed him on both cheeks.

"I hope you come back and see us again someday," she said soberly.

"I do, too," Rhett said, and was surprised to find that he meant it.

When he was a distance away he turned. They were all watching after him. Jennie Walker was waving. He waved back.


	42. Chapter 42

Ella was sitting up in her bed by the next day, and her appetite had returned; she did justice to the good chicken soup that Mrs. Johnston sent up on a tray and submitted meekly to a vicious sponge-bath that that good lady applied. Mrs. Johnston was a widow, and not used to having visitors—she took the opportunity of having Ella as a captive audience to unload on her all of her pent up gossip about faces and people that Ella did not know. With that avenue exhausted, she related her whole history.

"It was Cap Lexington who brung me here," she told Ella, vigorously scrubbing her neck. "Dump that pitcher over your head, honey. There you go. Yes, Cap brought me here in '72 and I'm mought glad he did. I was wearyin' of Ogallala. Too many people and too many cowpokes. Thought I might like me a different pace of life—mebbe a husband and a few kids. I got me a husband—it was easy. But the Lord decided not to bless us with any young'uns. His will be done, I suppose. Well, anyways, I was surely glad when I met Mr. Johnston that he wasn't a cowpoke."

"What did he do for a living?" Ella wondered.

"Lordy, child, he was a rancher. Or at least, he tried to be. Never was very good at it. But he was plumb determined—he always said he'd make a go of it or die trying—and he did. A bull gored him two years ago. My—that was a sight. I don't know if I'll forget it until the day I die. Well, he didn't leave me well off but Cap Lex bought me some in-surance for our wedding present, and that's left me comfortable. If it hadn't been for the Captain, I don't know what might've happened to me."

"How do you know the captain?" Ella allowed herself to be wrapped in a big, soft towel, and then stepped meekly into her freshly-laundered night-shirt. Mrs. Johnston gave a big, rumbling laugh that seemed to start at her toes and work its way up.

"He met me when I was a young, pretty thing back in Ogie," she said, and Ella realized with a start that Mrs. Johnston must have been a whore. Good heavens! How many whores there were! She had gone the first of her sixteen years without laying an eye on any one of them, save for the Watling woman back in Atlanta—but the rumor was that _she_ had retired. And now she had met dozens of whores, and was even friendly with some. Again, the images of Miss Pittypat, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Meade, played in a grim procession in her mind. But Ella did not care.

"I can't think of someone like Mrs. Johnston as a 'bad woman,'" she thought, as she was tucked snugly into bed by that good lady.

Three days into her stay Ella was well enough to join the little group at the supper table, and Mrs. Johnston watched with pride as she tucked into the biscuits and gravy. Her color had come back, her cough had almost gone, and she was pretty and rosy and bright-eyed—but not from fever. All the same, she bustled over Ella, making her toddies and changing her sheets; sitting by her bed and reading to her from a months-old _Tribune-Eagle_. She was so kind and gentle that Ella's eyes welled with tears and she had to turn her face to the pillow. But she was too slow—Mrs. Johnston had seen the dangerous glint in them, and the way her mouth turned down so sadly.

"What's wrong, dearie? Not feeling feverish again?"

"No," murmured Ella, feeling the woman's cool hands on her brow. But she could not help thinking that it should be her own mother doing these things—nursing her, crooning to her, and holding her hand while she fell into sleep.

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After a week had elapsed, even Mrs. Johnston pronounced that Ella was well enough so that the little group might depart. She was eating three hearty meals a day, stopping just short of licking her plate, and her cough had gone entirely. She took the stairs up to her little room two at a time, and laughed outrageously when she saw Kin and Buck on their knees, weeding the flower-bed and pulling up nearly as many daffodils as they did thistles.

"I think we've transgressed on your hospitality for too long, dear Mrs. Johnston," she giggled. "If you want any flowers left at all, we'd best leave sooner rather than later."

Mrs. Johnston was not keen to see them go. She lived alone, and her nearest neighbor was four miles away. She liked having the house full to bursting with young people and their antics. She liked having young lovers in her house. She liked walking into the parlor and seeing the girl and that tall one—Kin or Ken or what was it—spring apart, guiltily. She always gave a secret chuckle, knowing that they had been up to no good.

She liked Kin, and said frankly that he was a fine specimen of man, just the sort of cowboy she had enjoyed above all others when she had been a sporting woman. He was neither silent nor verbose, and he seemed to have a brain between his ears, which was something for a man. She liked Ella, and was openly admiring of her little, ladylike, innate Robillard ways.

"You can tell your folks was quality," she remarked, and Ella laughed—a bit too harshly.

"Perhaps they were—once," she said. "My father was a gentleman but I never knew him. My mother…" she trailed off and her eyes grew bright and hard, and she turned to talk to Buck to cover up her feelings.

Mrs. Johnston had no great liking for Buck—or at least, she pretended not to.

"You nasty creetur!" she chided, when he came home near to falling-down drunk after a sly visit to the tacking store that played double duty as a saloon. "Lordy me, he can hardly stand! Don't you come in here with them boots! And don't you try to kiss me! You'll sleep on the porch tonight." But she gave him a plump pillow and a warm quilt, and her eyes twinkled as she shooed him away. When they took their leave of her, Mrs. Johnston had packed a lunch for them to share, but it was Buck to whom she slipped another couple sandwiches.

"I like a man who appreciates his victuals," she told him. "Even if you do chew like a hog! Lordy, boy, was you raised in a barn?"

"No ma'am—Matagorda."

"Well, that's close enough. Come here, chickens, and let me kiss you all good-bye. Mind you write me from Montany, and let me know you got there safe and sound. You don't forget, you hear?"

She had a fond caress for Ella, Buck and Kin, and to Margot she inclined her head, knowing that the silent girl would wish no more. Mrs. Johnston stood at her gate and waved until they were out of sight—when they had disappeared, she sighed, and went back to her chores. The stalls must be mucked out and the cow needed milking. Mrs. Johnston kept up a steady stream of chatter as she took her place on the milking stool.

"I'll tell you what, Nellie," she told the cow, who turned to look at her with gentle, liquid brown eyes. "I thought I was in for some trouble with Marty showed up with the lot of them—but I was pleasantly surprised. They're good young people—just the kind of people that we need in these parts. The towns are filling up something scandalously with no-goods, and prospectors, and half-breeds. That little red-haired girl is a sweet thing. I wisht I could tell why she got that look in her eyes so often—that look like maybe she's missing something that she don't know how to find. And her man loves her—that's all a woman can hope for in this weary world. They're so in love—and I think a love like that only comes around once in a lifetime. She don't look so sad and lost when he's by her. I can tell some thing by looking at her that I bet she don't even know yet. Well, my blessing is on them and their household, that's for sure, and it always will be.

"And that yaller-haired fellow! He reminds me of my first beau—little Jake Jenkins, back home in St. Louie. He was just as silly—and sweet—and stupid. I wonder what became of poor Jake? Last I heard of him he'd gone to fight with the Missouri Calvary, CSA. And his brother went with the Yankees, and the two of them had to face off over battle lines at Shiloh. My, but that was a long time ago. Poor Jake—he always looked like a fellow who was doomed from the start. That Buck person has put me in mind of him."

She shook her head and ruminated for a minute or two. The steady squirts of milk made rhythmic ringing sounds against the side of the metal pail.

When Mrs. Johnston next spoke, her voice was critical.

"I don't like that squaw they brung with them. She gives me the creeps, Nell. Never had one word to say to me and she took her victuals like she was entitled to them. Not a 'please' nor a 'thank you' in the bunch. Always skulking around my garden and never tending to her baby when it cried. Shy, they all said, but it's my opinion she's not. I don't know what to say about her except that still waters run deep. I've seen a man jump into the most placid lake and get tangled up in something under the surface, and drown. Always watching into the distance—and waiting—but for what? I'll miss the others, but I'm glad _she's_ gone."

With the milking done she took her full pail and went around to the front of the house, stopping for a moment to look at the bit of horizon where the young people had been. There was no sign of them now. The lone, level land was empty and bare. The sun was coming down and her garden was lit by shadows. Mrs. Johnston put her hand to her mouth to see the state of her flower bed.

"Laws a mercy! Those boys have pulled up half my pretty blue irises. They was so eager to help, but it looks just like they've killed with kindness. Oh, well—they'll grow back—even thicker next year, for they've been thinned, I suppose. Well, the house will surely seem quiet tonight with them gone…" And she climbed the steps with a sigh, thinking of the boys and girl she had grown so fond of in just a few short days.

If Mrs. Johnston had looked harder, she would have seen a few wood crosses, set just outside in the grass beyond her whitewashed picket fence. The crosses pointed to the north west, in the direction where the folks had disappeared to. But she did not see them, and so she did not puzzle over them. She went inside the dark house, her mind already having moved on to other things.


	43. Chapter 43

Ella laughed to feel the wind on her face as she spurred Mr. Butler into a gallop. After being cooped up indoors for so long she was glad—glad—to be back out in the wide open.

They crossed the Powder by nightfall and made camp in a little grove of trees beside the river. Montana! They were finally in Montana. After so many months, they had arrived. How much had changed in those months1 She looked fondly ahead to where Kinnicut rode easily in his saddle.

It was a pretty sort of country. Blue, hazy mountains reared up in the west, but the land they rode was grassy and rolling, starred with pine forests and winding, rocky streams. Good cattle land—the best kind of cattle land. The sky seemed so wide and close and the air smelled clean and cool. Ella laughed again as she opened her mouth to taste it. Montana!

The weather had changed from cool to balmy overnight ("Indian Summer," Buck had explained), and it was warm enough so that Ella thought she might like to sleep outside by the fire, instead of in her tent. They were half a mile away from a little town—hardly more than one street of rough-hewn buildings. She had seen dozens of such little towns, but this one affected her peculiarly. She sat watching it as the sun went down, and felt reassured in the fact that civilization was only a short way away.

She and Buck and Margot ate the good food in their hamper, and Ella blessed kind Mrs. Johnston again for her thoughtfulness in packing it for them. She had got used to home-cooking again, and did not relish the idea of eating tinned pork and beans after a week of fluffy beaten biscuits dripping with butter. Much better than those old Pecos strawberries that Ignacio cooked up every night. Ella thought of Ignacio with a pang that was akin to homesickness.

"I wonder where our folks are tonight."

She missed the noise and laughter of the boys—missed Tiny's banjo, Boots jokes, Cake's philosophical musings and Looky telling her to look at things. She missed the Captain's comforting presence, and as the sun disappeared below the horizon, she shuddered, for she had the distinct feeling that they were all alone and exposed on the flat prairie. If only Kin would stop skulking around in the darkness and come and sit with her.

He loped over, and even in the flickering firelight she could see his brow was furrowed.

"What is it?" she asked, suddenly alert.

Kin's lip turned down in its old way.

"Someone's following us," he said.

"Following us!"

"There's a set of tracks to the southeast. I spied them this morning and have been watching for them ever since. They double back around on themselves and disappear into the river bottom. I didn't want to go further than that without my gun."

He reached into his saddle-bag and pulled out his silver six-shooter, sliding it into his jacket pocket. Ella checked her own pocket and felt her derringer's heavy weight, and then reached down around her ankle for the Bowie knife she kept in her boot top. When Kin was nervous about something—it made her jumpy, too.

Buck had his arm around Margot, his long legs stretched out before the fire. He laughed.

"You're getting tetchy as old Dublin Gray in your old age, Kinnicut," he said. "Remember how Dub would shoot at them chaparral bushes if the moonlight hit on them wrong? Ain't nobody following us. Why would they? We ain't got anything they want. It's likely just some poor souls who are unlucky enough to be going to Montany, too. Come on, Margot, little squaw—let's hit the hay."

They trotted off a short distance, Buck whistling easily and Margot following obediently. Ella went to her own bedroll and lay down uneasily. "Come to bed," she called to Kin, and he turned, keeping his eyes on the horizon, and came over.

"Maybe we should go on into town tonight." He said it thoughtfully, as though he were weighing the words. "We could find a boarding house, maybe. Stay there instead."

"We won't have any trouble," Ella reassured him. How sweet and serious he was when he was worried! She put her arms about him and felt his shoulders unknot. Kin rubbed his eyes—he was tired. She kissed his hair and nestled against him as he stretched out beside her. In a moment his eyes were closed but he tossed and turned restlessly in his sleep.

Before Ella slept, she remembered something that made a strange shiver run through her body. Margot had smiled when Kin had spoken. She had noticed it _distinctly_, and she saw again, in her mind's eye, the girl's red lips as they curled into a secret smile.

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Ella awoke with a start. The fire had burned into embers. A great red moon was low in the sky. Kin had told her it was the harvest moon, but she did not like it. It was goblinish—eerie. It reminded her of her old nightmare, and it cast such an odd, luminous light over everything.

In the light of that moon she saw a movement from the corner of her eyes. "Kin! Kin!" she cried, suddenly terrified. "Buck!"

In a flash they were all awake, bolt upright, and a shadowy figure appeared against the darkness. Ella gasped and shrank back to see that it was an Indian. He was alone and on foot; he walked casually, with an easy, assured gait. The hair on the back of her neck prickled to see that his head was shaved, except for a thin lock running down the side of his scalp. His teeth flashed yellowly, and there was a glint of metal in his hand. A gun. Why did he have a gun?

A whirling set of images flew through her mind. Margot, smiling. Margot, watching the horizon—waiting. Three little wooden crosses in the soft dirt of the river bottom. A coiling pattern of white river stones. She turned to her, accusing, as everything clicked into place.

"You've been calling somebody—_you_ called him here!"

Margot's trembled and for the first time Ella saw true emotion in her blank, inscrutable face. The other girl's eyes were full of horror and fear—and something akin to panic. And then she knew that Margot had been calling someone—but she had not expected this. She had not wanted this.

"I didn't—I didn't!" she cried, and she clung to Buck, cowering behind him.

The Indian fired one shot into the air that made them all freeze. He motioned for them to go near to the campfire. Ella saw a glint of silver and realized that Kin and Buck had drawn their pistols. Quick as lightning, the Indian brave reached out and grabbed Ella's arm. She gave a sharp cry as she was crushed against his chest and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arm. The cold, unyielding barrel of his gun was pressed hard against her temple.

"Put down," said the brave, in a low, husky voice, motioning with his free hand for the men to give up their weapons. Buck threw his pistol, and it skittered close to the Indian's feet. He kicked it further, out into the black darkness beyond the little circle of light thrown by the dying fire.

Kin hesitated, holding his pistol steady at the Indian's chest. The brave seized Ella's hair and pulled roughly and she cried out again. A silvery flash—and the brave threw the handle of his gun across her face. Her lip split and Ella tasted a warm, salty wetness. Kin's eyes were large and afraid and tormented.

"Put down," said the brave again, and his voice was steely this time.

Kin threw the pistol, unwillingly, and stepped back next to Buck, his hands raised in the air.

Ella began to shudder as the brave reached inside her sheepskin coat. His hand was warm and brushed against her breast. For a moment she thought that he wanted—that he was going to—but he found in the inner pocket what he was looking for. Her own gun. He considered it a moment, scrutinizing the mother of pearl handle, and then he slipped it inside of his own coat.

Keeping his hold of Ella, the brave moved to the side and began to rifle through their saddlebags. With one hand he picked through their belongings, as though he were separating the wheat from the chaff. He threw a rope and a tin of beans to one side, and pocketed a roll of greenbacks, a flint, and some tobacco. Ella made a small noise in her throat when she saw his thin brown hand clasp, viselike, over her grandfather's pocket watch.

"Please," she murmured. "Please."

The brave tugged at her hair again and she choked back her words as the watch disappeared into his pocket, along with the other things. The brave stood, jerking her to her feet.

He advanced on Margot, and Ella gasped with relief as he took the gun away from her head and used it to lift Margot's chin, raising her face so that she had no choice but meet his eyes. Ella recoiled as he reeled back and then spit into the girl's face. She said something, pleadingly, in her language and the brave replied, reaching for the baby, which Margot held in her arms. His voice was cold and low.

"No!" said Margot. "No!"

The brave raised the barrel of his pistol and brought it down, hard, against her cheek. With a cry Margot fell to the ground, still clutching her child against her chest.

Ella felt, rather than saw, Buck bristling. "Now, see here," he began, indignantly, and after that, they were in hell.

There was a burst of smoke and an acrid smell and Buck fell back against the tall grass. Blood poured from the back of his head and ran down the little slope in a dark, fast moving stream. Buck was dead—dear, darling Buck! He was dead—dead—his eyes were wide and staring at the starry sky. Ella went numb from her head to her toes. She found she could not make a sound—her mouth moved in the shape of his name, but the sound would not come out. She made an involuntary move toward him, but the brave jerked her back and brought his fist down against her cheek. There was an explosion of light and pain and sound, as Margot began to scream and her baby began to cry.

There was another shot, and she fell and tumbled over backwards, sprawling awkwardly on the grass, arms and legs thrown out, her head tilted at a terrible angle. Her scream had been cut off abruptly but the sound lingered. The baby had stopped its crying.

Once, a thousand lifetimes ago, Ella had seen Uncle Will shoot a horse that was lame. The brave disposed of Margot in the same way—as though she were a thing broken, which could not be fixed. As though she were hardly worth the little effort it took to finish her. Only, Ella thought, only Uncle Will's eyes had been filled with pity for the poor beast. The brave had no pity for Margot. His eyes were cold and cruel.

Things began to move slowly—with a terrible, otherworldly slowness, although when Ella looked back on it, in later years, she would know that it could not have lasted more than a second. She watched from where she was floating someplace above it all, as the brave turned and came face to face with Kin. His fingers were still tangled in her hair. For the smallest moment everything was completely still.

Ella's eyes welled with tears as she looked, for a second that stretched on forever, into the face of the man whom she loved more than she loved life itself. He _was_ her life—he had given life to her—for had she ever really lived, before she met him? Oh, she loved him! He was impossibly dear to her. She made a low noise, somewhere between a moan and a sob, and stretched out her hands to him without thinking. And Kin stepped toward her, as though he would reach out and take her. Another gunshot split the night, and a lazy twirl of smoke curled up toward the terrible red moon.

There was a sound, almost inaudible, no more than a breath exhaled. Kin sat down hard on the ground and a red stain bloomed suddenly—sickeningly—against his shirt front.

"Ella." Kin's voice was tinged with faint surprise. He looked down at the blood and up at her again. "Ella."

And then he slumped back and his eyes closed. Her knees began to knock together. Every moment was a part of a great, crushing machine, yet separate and unto itself. The brave jerked her roughly to his chest. The pistol dug into the soft skin of her temple. Ella's bowels had turned to water and she was cold with sweat and fear. There was a tiny click as the hammer went back. For a moment, the world stood still, and time seemed not to exist.

And then she moved. She lunged forward and it was enough to throw the brave off balance. He lost his grip on her, and the shot that had been meant to end her life went wide. Quick as a flash her hand went to her boot top, and she had her knife in her hand. She did not hesitate. From a great distance above she watched as the knife plunged into the Indian's chest. She lifted it out and felled it again—and again. Her eyes were savage, her teeth were bared. He slumped forward onto his knees and fell face-first onto the cold ground. There was a rasping in his chest. He shuddered, and did not move again.

The night was quiet and still—too quiet, too still. What had happened? What had happened? Oh—she had killed a man. What would Aunt Pitty say? What would mother think? But he killed Buck, came the thought unbidden to her mind. He killed Margot—and the baby? What about the baby? He would have killed me. And then her blood froze in her veins. Kin—he had shot Kin. Again, and slowly, she saw the way the blood had bloomed so suddenly on his chest. Dark, treacherous blood. He had shot Kin—had he killed Kin, too?

Kin—Kin! He was lying on his back, with his hand covering the wound on his chest. His eyes were closed, and his face was waxy white. Her knees crumpled and she crawled to him. Someone was making strange, keening noises. Who was it—oh, who was it?

She reached out and her hands touched his lifeless form and she shook him, timidly at first, and then violently, when he did not respond.

"Kin! Kin!" someone was screaming his name. "Kin! Kinnicut!" There was a long, high wail. Who was it? Who was it?

Oh, he mustn't leave her! He mustn't be dead! He _was_ dead, he was so cold and white. Why did he not open his eyes? Oh, she loved him—she loved him so much that she wished she, too, were dead. Why hadn't she let the brave shoot her? How could she live without Kin? Why wouldn't he open his eyes? Perhaps he was not dead. Her fingers fumbled at his wrist for a pulse but she could not find one, or else she was shaking too badly to be able. Kin! Kin! Open your eyes, darling! Don't be dead!

She shook him and shook him, screaming gibberish, begging, pleading, her words rising away to a wail. She raised a hand to her face and when she pulled it away she saw that it was smeared with something dark and viscous. She leaned over the grass and retched, and shook him again. Kin! Why wouldn't he open his eyes and talk to her?

She was vaguely conscious of pulling herself to her feet, of stumbling away, and then she felt muscle and sinew begin to work and she started to run. Her mind and body did not seem to be connected. The town—the town. She must get to the town. She needed help. Someone could help her, there! She ran furiously, pumping her legs, and her wild cry of terror rent the night which had grown so terribly still.

"Help! Help me!"

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The moon was low and dark as it had been in her nightmare. Ella found herself running through a darkened street. Her throat burned and her chest ached. Twice she stopped to retch again and then stumbled further down the dark main road. The buildings on either side looked deserted and Ella began to think she was in a ghost town, that there was no one alive in it but her. She was the last living person on earth. There was a dark stain on her hands and she looked at them dazedly, flexing them as though she was not sure that they belonged to her. What was that, which stained them? What was it? Oh, it was blood—his blood—Kin's blood.

"Oh, help me!" she screamed again, and began pounding on the nearest door. She moved across the street, and pounded, kicked the wood. "Help me—someone!"

There was no response and she shrieked wildly as she went into the street, panic and fear and terror and loss making her dizzy and sick-feeling again. "Help _me_!" she screamed, so raw and terribly that her throat ached with it. She sobbed crazily. Wouldn't someone come and help her? Wasn't there anyone else who could help her in this horrible, cruel, dead world?

Everything tilted dangerously and she sobbed and screamed, and sobbed again.

And then a light came on in one of the darkened windows.


	44. Chapter 44

**Thanks for the reviews! I am glad so many of you were upset that Buck died—it shows you really liked him. I appreciate everyone's comments, even those of you who are NOT happy! **

**Stay tuned to find out about Kin…**

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Mrs. George Darcy was dreaming.

In her dream it was summertime, the hottest, most languid time of the year. The air was thick and humid and full of scents that she had not smelled in years—the heady rush of magnolias, the clean, fresh tang of the tilled earth, the rosewater splashed onto her handkerchief, and the sweet violets in the nosegay at her waist. She felt her silk skirts rustle around her ankles as she rose and ran down through the avenue of cedars that led to the drive. Across the little footbridge that spanned the lazy river that wound around the place—her home. In her dream, she was _home_.

There was a soft rap at her bedroom door and she pulled herself awake, with difficulty. After a cautious pause, the door opened, and Josiah poked his head into the room. Mrs. Darcy was, for a moment, annoyed, and tried to compose herself, smoothing her hair and tying her nightdress tighter at the neck. "What is it?"

Josiah was, even in the middle of the night, respectful. He was a large, gentle man, timid around people but splendid with animals. He shifted awkwardly in the door-way.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but there's a ruckus around town."

"What? Is it fire? I don't smell anything. Have you gotten the stock inside?"

Josiah waited for her to finish her interjection and began again. "No ma'am, it's nothing like that…"

"Is the Wilkins girl having her baby? I told them not to call me until she was crowning. First babies take a powerful long time to be born and I'm not about to sit around with old Amelia longer than I have to."

"It ain't no baby, neither."

"Gracious, Josiah! If you're going to tell me, tell me. If you want to play guessing games I think I'll wait until morning."

"There's been a shooting, ma'am. An Injun surprised a little group camping out down by the river. Three kilt and one beat up pretty bad—a girl. They need you to come."

Before he had finished speaking she was out of bed and had lighted the lamp, and was shrugging into her dress, fastening the buttons on her basque with alarming speed. A few quick twists and her hair was in a neat knot at the back of her neck. She felt around on the floor by the bed.

"My bag?"

"I've got the doctor's things right here."

Mrs. Darcy's lips curved in an automatic smile. George hadn't left her with much when he died—what she had she had built the bulk of with her own two hands—but he had left her his doctor's tools, and she had in her sharp mind all the long-ago nursing she had done during the war. She stepped into her boots and snatched her bag, speaking in brusque monosyllables to save time.

"Where?"

"The saloon, ma'am."

At the door she turned, her brow furrowed with a sudden worry. "Oh, but I couldn't leave…"

"I'll stay, ma'am, and wait up. You needn't worry."

"It may be some time…"

"However long it takes, I'll stay."

"Thank you, Josiah." With a wry grin she went out, cramming her hat down over her curls. The front door opened and she disappeared into the night.

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The saloon was lit dimly, but in the darkness she could see that the tables, which were, at other times, used for serving meals and dealing cards, had been turned into makeshift stretchers. There were three white shapes, covered with sheets. She quickly turned each one aside, glancing underneath. A man—dead. A girl—an Indian girl—dead. And a baby, dead, too. At this, Mrs. Darcy made the sign of the cross, automatically. It was an old habit that came back to her in times of trouble—she had not set foot inside a church in years, except for the old Baptist preaching-house, for George's funeral. Well, there wasn't anything she could do for these poor folks. She was not one to ruminate on things that could not be helped, and she stepped quickly to the fourth table, where a group of men were clustered around the white, still body of a young man. Man—her eyes flickered over him appraisingly. By all rights he should be called a man—but really, he was hardly any more than a boy. His face looked very young, and the dark stubble on his chin seemed incongruous with the boyish features.

Her eyes moved over his form, taking in everything at once. She could tell by his clothes that he was a cowboy—by the stain on his shirt that he had lost a lot of blood. But he was alive. His chest rose and fell rapidly, almost imperceptibly—but he _was_ alive.

"I need light," she commanded, and the throng of men parted to reveal a girl. Good heavens! Her face was battered, with large purple bruises blossoming over her cheeks. Her lip was split and contorted grotesquely as she tried to speak. She tried several times before words would come.

"I am Mrs. Darcy," said Mrs. Darcy. The girl blinked and seemed to try very hard to process this information.

"A doctor?" she asked finally, beseechingly. She looked very young and afraid. "A doctor?" she said again.

"There isn't any doctor," said Mrs. Darcy. "There hasn't been a doctor in these parts for two years."

The girl covered her mouth, in panic. Her eyes grew wide and fearful and desperate, and she began to make keening, high-pitched sounds, clutching the hand of the boy on the table. Her wails gave way into shrill screams.

Mrs. Darcy opened her bag and drew out bandages, scissors, and a vial of morphia. These things she arranged on the seat of a chair that she drew near. When she had laid them out, she turned to the girl and brought her hand sharply across her face. The girl cried out as her already-battered face flamed with pain again. She looked up at her attacker with hurt, confused eyes.

"Hush," Mrs. Darcy told her, "You will wake the town. He is not sick enough to die."

The girl remained silent—blessedly silent. She crammed the knuckles of her hand against her bruised lips.

"He will not die?" she whispered. "He will not die?"

"Not if I can help it." Mrs. Darcy cut through his shirt in one smooth motion. "He is your…"

"Husband," said the girl. "He will not die?"

"Most likely not."

She began to rock back and forth, her hands clasped around her knees. The older woman looked at the younger one sharply.

"You'll be quiet or you'll have to go outside."

The girl nodded, looking up through her tangled strands of hair.

"Good." Mrs. Darcy began to work over the boy, and the girl rocked back and forth. Her brow was furrowed and tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked, but she did not make a sound and she did not close her eyes.

She rolled the boy over and saw that the bullet had gone all the way through. Good. That meant a clean wound, at least. She felt around. It had missed the lung. That was good, too. And the artery—if it had hit the artery he would have bled to death and there would be nothing they could do about that except watch it happen. As it was, there was very little they could do except bandage him and wait and see. He hadn't lost too much blood—but there was no telling with these things, and she did not want to make a promise that she could not keep to this poor, terrified girl. Why, she _was_ just a girl—a little girl—hardly older than sixteen or so. How could this child be somebody's wife?

The boy's eyes flickered as his wound was dressed. "Lorie," he murmured, and the girl started, as if brought back to herself.

"I'm here, darling. Oh, my darling. I'm here." She kissed his hand, passionately, and his eyes settled shut again. Some of the color had come back into his cheeks.

A few drops of morphia on his tongue and he was sleeping soundly, and breathing better. "Let him be," ordered Mrs. Darcy, and she turned to the girl, who dropped his hand unwillingly.

Her face was black and blue and her lip needed a stitch. Other than that she seemed unharmed.

Her hands were so cold, so cold. The poor child. What a predicament to find herself in. Her friends were dead, and her husband might be dying, for all she knew. How nice it would be to cuddle her in her arms and let her sob her fears away. And how strange that she should think that! Everyone knew that the "doctor's wife" didn't welcome caresses.

"Lorie," said Mrs. Darcy, and the girl jumped as though she'd been struck. "Is that your name?"

A nod.

"Listen to me, Lorie," she said, and the girl's eyes roamed around the room wildly for a moment before fixing on her face. "What is your husband's name?"

"Kin—Kinnicut. It's R. Xavier Kinnicut. He goes by Kin."

"Well, I think Kin is going to live. I think he is going to be well. But it will take time."

The girl considered this.

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes," she said, and she began to rock again.

"Listen to me," said Mrs. Darcy, and her voice was gentler, now. "He is going to sleep for a long time and then he will wake. In a few hours I will have these men move him to my house—when it is safe. You can stay there until he is better. Will you let me take a stitch in your lip?"

The girl nodded, eyes wide. She had stopped her rocking, and was sitting perfectly still, as though rooted to her spot. Her hand touched her bloody lip and she seemed surprised to find that there was blood from it on her hand. She nodded again.

"Do you need to take a drink of whisky first?"

The girl shook her head 'no,' but Mrs. Darcy called for a glass anyway. When it was delivered to her, she placed it under the girl's nose.

"Drink," she said, and the girl sipped obediently.

She threaded her needle, watching as the girl calmed herself. First her shoulders relaxed. She let out a long breath and then shuddered. She sipped again and her face lost some of its livid horror and the color came back to her cheeks. Her hand crept down and cradled her belly.

"I was sick before," she said childishly, and took another sip.

Mrs. Darcy suddenly took the glass away. "That's enough," she said, looking over the girl with a critical eye.

Up close, she saw that the girl was a pretty thing, underneath her bruises. She had a sweet face. Such a pretty, upturned little nose. Such slanting, tip-tilted eyes. She was somebody's little girl. Here and there was a freckle like a dot of honey against milky skin. Oh, for a moment she wanted to seize that face and lay a kiss upon it but she did not know why!

"Hold still," said Mrs. Darcy tenderly.

She brushed a lock of auburn hair away from the girl's face, delighting in the feel of the warm skin against her hand. For the first time, the girl seemed to really see her, and the older woman sat back on her heels as she felt the girl's gaze run all over her face. The red curls brushed against the black. Green eyes stared into green eyes.

And then the girl leapt to her feet. Her eyes were no longer green but a strange white blaze.

"Mother!" she cried, and Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler Darcy put her hands to her throat in shock. "Mother—oh, Mother!"


	45. Chapter 45

Scarlett padded down the hallway, so weary she felt as though she must be floating through a dream. She couldn't possibly be awake still, after all that had happened. It was no longer the middle of the night but had crossed over to being very early in the morning. Through the plain muslin curtains she could glimpse the first stains of sunrise on in the starry eastern sky. But the house was still cool and dark. She was grateful that the darkness hid her face, which she knew must look ghastly from exhaustion and shock. Even at the venerable age of thirty-eight, even after three years living in the rough Montana clime, she still harbored a secret vanity. She would hate for anyone to see her looking as wretched as she felt.

For a moment, Scarlett thought that she _must_ have dreamed it all—surely if she pinched herself she would wake up in her bed and Josiah would be outside, warming up the colts in the paddock. But no—she peered into George's room and the boy—Kin—was still sleeping soundly on the cot. Kin—Ella's husband. Ella's husband! Ella…

Scarlett made her way exhaustedly back to the front room, and scowled when she saw Josiah Harte sitting upright on the settee, exactly as she had left him when she had flown out of the house oh, a few eons ago. She couldn't be dreaming if Josiah was here—_he_ wasn't the stuff dreams were made of. Tall and stooped, with iron gray hair and a wrinkled, leathery face, he radiated an air of both permanence and unflappable implacability. He received her scowl unblinkingly.

"You can go to bed now. Everything's calm—for the moment." She did not even try to stifle her yawn.

"I think I'll go and water the horses," said Josiah and Scarlett felt irritated. Didn't the man ever need to sleep? She hated being at a disadvantage before anyone—it was a habit she had never grown out of—and it irked her that he should appear so calm and rested when she felt she might fall asleep standing up if she stood too long in one place.

"Go on, then," she said rudely, and then remembered her manners. She crossed the room and dropped a kiss on the old man's cheek.

"Thank you for sitting up for me," she told him, and he nodded his head so that his gray hair bobbed. He ambled out and she looked around the empty room, wondering what to do next.

Now that she was free to go to bed she suddenly felt restless and not like sleeping at all. She walked around the room, putting things to rights. It was a plain, spare room, not at all like other parlors she had known. The floor was bare plank—_think_ of the plush carpets of her house on Peachtree street! The furniture was spare and practical—think of the soft sofas at Aunt Pitty's—the windows shuttered. (The green velvet potieres her mother had prized so highly!) But _this_ was Scarlett's home, and she felt a fierce pride in it that she had never felt for any of her prior dwelling places. This was the nicest front room in four hundred miles, and it was all the result of her hard work.

She tiptoed down the hallway and looked in again on the sleeping boy. Kin. He had shifted in his sleep and she deftly changed his bandage and dosed him again with morphia. When she was sure that he was breathing softly, she closed the door and went into the room across the hall.

Scarlett stood and looked at the narrow little bed where her daughter slept. Her daughter! She began to shake. She had not thought she would ever see Ella Lorena again. And now, here she was. Here she was.

Thank God she was asleep. She remembered those first few incoherent moments after Ella had launched into her arms, and knew that when she woke again the first flush of greeting would be gone and difficult questions would have to be answered. Scarlett put her fingers to her lips and felt something like real fear. She would not know how to answer those questions, when the time came for them to be asked. Once she would have said, "Oh, I'll think of that tomorrow," but she no longer put things off for tomorrow. She knew that it was not prudent. Some things must be dealt with presently. It was dangerous to put them off. She had learned in her years in the west that tomorrow was no longer a luxury—no longer a guarantee.

But for now Ella was asleep—peacefully asleep, though her face was a mess of bruises and her lip had swollen to grotesque proportions. Scarlett watched her sleep—noted her full lashes and her red hair spread across the pillow. Her daughter. Here she was.

The curtains billowed at the window and in the moonlight, Scarlett saw in the bed next to her a little girl with tangled black hair and eyes that were, under their closed lids, a bright, brilliant blue…she shook her head and blinked her eyes and went out. She could not bear to stay any longer.

She went back to the front room and sank down onto the settee and buried her face in her hands. Once her life had seemed so simple. And now it was not. Her mind went back, back—to the day, five years ago, when her whole world had changed…

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_1877. New Orleans, Louisiana._

"Mrs. Jones! I say, Mrs. Jones!"

Scarlett gave a jump as the landlady called her. She had not yet grown used to being 'Scarlett Jones.' Would she ever get used to not being Scarlett O'Hara? Mrs. Devereux had calmly accepted as fact that 'Jones' must be Scarlett's name, though the letter of introduction that she had finagled out of Uncle Henry Hamilton plainly listed her as Scarlett Butler. "My maiden name," Scarlett lied hurriedly and Mrs. Devereux cried out of course, it must be so!

"Of the South Carolina Butlers?" she questioned. She was a lady of the Old Guard, and her thorough knowledge of bloodlines went back a hundred years and more.

Scarlett thought quickly. "The Georgia Butlers," she said, finally.

The old lady cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. "I don't know them."

"My father was Mr. James Butler," said Scarlett, feeling a pang as she said it, as though she had disavowed her own Pa by refusing to give his name. "From Athens," she said, squaring her shoulders, and looking down her nose at her landlady. "Surely you must know them."

She drew herself up to her full height and made her voice trail off in an air of disdain. Mrs. Devereux wavered. She had not heard of the James Butler family from Athens (for no such family existed), but to admit that she had not would be to admit that there was one nice family in the South which she did not know. Her pride and vanity won out in the end, over her curiosity. She accepted Scarlett's lie as fact and did not question it. Besides, the woman _must_ be from a good family. She had a way of carrying herself that was innate to the upper classes, and her breeding showed in her tiny wrists and charming deportment. "Of course," she cried, "James Butler of Athens! I recall him, now!"

Scarlett smiled, grateful to have gotten away with it, and sat back against the settee. How Rhett would have laughed over this, if she could tell him. He had always marveled at her ability to manipulate people. What a good joke he would think it was. She suddenly steeled herself, her whole body tensing, her hands balling into fists. She must not think of Rhett.

But Mrs. Devereux had not finished speaking. "You put me in mind of a schoolmate of mine," she said appraisingly. "Something about your eyes reminds me of Ellen Robillard. From Savannah—are you any relation to her?"

Scarlett wished furiously that she had decided to disappear to a place where they _didn't_ place so great and holy an importance on kin. Her mind moved rapidly, trying to think of a believable lie. She could not claim any relation to the Robillards—everything would be found out if she did. Mrs. Devereux kept a nice, respectable house—she would turn Scarlett out if she knew that she were a divorcee, the shamed ex-wife of Captain Butler the blockade runner—Captain Rhett Butler, the owner of whorehouses, the friend to Scallywags. "I've never heard of the Robillards," she whispered. Mother—oh, mother! I'm sorry—I'm sorry!

Mrs. Devereux scrutinized her a moment longer and then her shoulders went up and down. "It doesn't matter," she said at last. "Your letter from Mr. Henry Hamilton said that you were a good friend of Melanie Wilkes. I shall never forget how she nursed my nephew Ellington back in '62. She was a saint on earth, and that's a fact. She sent his mother a lock of hair when he died. Any friend of Melanie Wilkes is a friend to me."

Scarlett bit her tongue until she tasted blood. What it must have cost Uncle Henry to write such a letter, claiming Scarlett as Melanie's closest friend! Scarlett knew he did not relish any connection with her, but his conscience must have won out in the end. He knew that Melanie would want Scarlett to have every opportunity as she began her knew life.

How different things might have been if Melanie had lived! If Melanie had lived, and her baby had been born healthy and strong! Scarlett thought of a little girl, much like Melanie herself. Melanie could have convinced Rhett to take her back. And if he had, Scarlett could have given him another child of their own. A little boy, perhaps—there could never be another Bonnie. But a little boy, with Rhett's swarthy coloring and invincible spirit! She shuddered uncontrollably and looked down into her lap until the moment had passed.

"Mrs. Jones! I declare, you are deep in thought!"

Scarlett, brought back suddenly into the present, turned and dimpled automatically at the old lady, though her thoughts had been far away. She had been boarding with Mrs. Jones for five months, now, and she knew that the woman did not see her as a satisfactory companion. 'Mrs. Jones' did not gossip—Scarlett was too afraid of letting something out that she should not, and kept her words to a minimum. She knew that Mrs. Devereux thought she must spend too much time staring out the window onto Peach Street, lost in thought. She tried to look interested and merry, and saw her landlady nod approvingly.

"I'm so sorry," said Scarlett, "I was thinking about the weather. Do you suppose it will rain in the afternoon? I should hate to miss our walk."

It was one of the only pleasures Scarlett allowed herself—a brief walk, every day, up and down the side street. She never ventured further than that, though the sounds and smells of the city called to her. She was too afraid that she might see someone who recognized her. But she hated to be cooped up in the stifling house.

"Never mind our walk!" cried Mrs. Devereux. "We won't have a walk today. There is too much to be done. Dear, we are to have another guest—" Mrs. Devereux insisted on referring to her lodgers as 'guests,' though they were, in fact, paying boarders, "And he is coming on the afternoon train. He will be here in time for supper. Goodness me, he'll be hungry enough to eat a horse. Men always are. I shall tell cook to make doves in wine. Mrs. Jones, you must go up and change into something pretty. Forgive me for saying it, but you look like a crow in black, and men don't like to see a woman in mourning."

Scarlett climbed the stairs to her room and flung open her wardrobe. Almost everything she owned was black, as she was in fake mourning for her fictitious husband. 'Mr. Jones' had died at Vicksburg. It was her one foray into the dramatic, and Mrs. Devereux had been well-pleased to hear of it.

She had bridled at wearing mourning for each of her two, real husbands who had died, but found she did not mind it now for the poor, pretended Mr. Jones. Black suited her mood. She was mourning her old life—Rhett, and Bonnie, and Melanie—and her poor lost baby. Her children, Ella and Wade, who were holed up at Tara. She hoped that Suellen was being kind to them. Oh, if she could go back! Oh, for all the long-dead possibilities that might have been her life, if only things had been different!

Far away at the back of her closet was a pretty, changeable silk taffeta, green in some lights, and lilac in others. She had worn it the day of Ashley's party—the day when everything had about her life had come unbuckled and unraveled. Why had she brought it with her? What a grim reminder of all that she had had—and all that she had thrown away!

It had been the height of fashion, once, but it was sadly _outré _now. Well, she would have to wear it—it was the only color she had. She put it on, and noticed how it gaped at the waist and neck. Goodness, she must be grown so thin! She faced herself in the mirror and looked at the woman who stared back. She was so lean that her collarbones made deep shadowy pools at her throat. She looked like a hungry cat.

The dress had short, puffed sleeves and the faint scars at her wrists showed plainly in the low lamplight. She did not care. Scarlett made a few hasty sweeps at her hair, mustering it into a chignon. Then she went downstairs to await their visitor.

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George Darcy was an Englishman—tall and silver-haired. His eyes were kind. Other than that he was unremarkable, and Scarlett guessed that he must be in his forties. He was polite to Mrs. Devereux, even when she was at her most incessant, questioning him about his family connections. She was unimpressed when he said that he could trace them back to the Norman Conquest.

"The Normans," sniffed Mrs. Devereux. "Why, I went to school with Lavenia Norman. Dear girl." And then to Scarlett, in an aside, "That whole family is prone to drink."

If their guest overheard, he made no reaction. He was leaning forward, smiling, his eyes sweeping Scarlett's still form. She became very conscious that she had not spoken for the entire meal beyond a polite, "Yes, thank you," when he asked if she would take more of the lemonade, which stood in icy silver pitchers on the table. She felt as though he were expecting her to speak, and she blurted,

"What brings you to New Orleans, Mr. Darcy?"

As soon as she had said it, she wished she had not spoken. He might reciprocate, and she would have to think up an explanation for why she found herself there. Surprisingly, it was not a question that came up during Mrs. Devereux interrogatories.

But he only said, "I'm not sure. I have no real reason for visiting New Orleans, other than that I wanted to see it. And it's Doctor Darcy."

Mrs. Devereux's eyes lit up and she began talking in great length about her lumbago, which she said, tormented her night and day. Dr. Darcy listened attentively, even interjecting at intervals, but Scarlett felt sure, even though she kept her eyes down, that he was watching her.

After coffee had been served, she excused herself, claiming to be weary after a long day. As she climbed the stairs she heard Mrs. Devereux ask,

"Now, doctor, what do you think of dear Mrs. Jones? Is she not enchanting?"

"She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." The words came back to her. Scarlett once would have flushed with triumph over her conquest, thinking with pleasure how nice it was to be young and attractive and able to flirt with success. Tonight, though, she only felt very tired and for the first time, as she studied her face in the mirror—she thought that she looked old.


	46. Chapter 46

_1878. New Orleans, Louisiana_.

Scarlett laughed and swatted George with her parasol as they walked from one shady end of Peach Street to the other.

It was January; it had been a year since she had first come to stay on Peach street. A year! It felt like more. How long and drab and dark the first few months had been. The days were just beginning to take on a color and excitement, though she did not know why. She only knew that she did not wake with the crushing, stifling feeling that the day would be interminable. She looked forward to the morning, when she could go down to breakfast and eat as much as her heart desired. Bit by bit, her appetite was coming back. She no longer looked scrawny and underfed.

For the first time since Melanie had died, Scarlett had a friend.

Oh, George was stuffy at times, and so _British_. He had a peculiar, aggravating slowness of manner that irritated her, and his table manners were atrocious, no matter how correct and cordial he was in other respects. He read fat books and wanted to discuss them at length, which bored her. But beside those things, he had a funny, open way of talking that Scarlett was not used to. If he thought something he said it—but he said it with as much tact and grace as possible. _She_ would have sounded brash and impertinent but somehow he never did.

But he could chat about fashions and the latest trends with the same ease and more things besides. He had been everywhere, Scarlett discovered, and he talked to her of the places and people he had seen in a low, non-chalant voice after supper. She found herself thinking of Rhett. Why, he was widely-traveled, too. The difference was that Rhett did not volunteer information about himself. He might have seen the moon and he wouldn't tell anyone what the weather was like there!

Scarlett listened eagerly to George's stories—for they were "Scarlett" and "George" to one another now—and a tiny flame of wanderlust was kindled in her breast. Once, she had dreamed of going no further than Atlanta, twenty-five miles from her home. Now she could never go back there, and because of that she began to feel that the whole wide world was open to her and wonder about the other places in it she might go.

Having a friend changed everything in the world! She was even able to bear Mrs. Devereux's meddling ways with a lighter heart. She did not damn the woman to perdition in her head half as much as she used to. She laughed again.

"Oh, George," she sighed, "You are a bad thing! It's terrible of you to tease Mrs. Devereux the way you did at dinner-time. She's just an old lady."

"Not so very old."

"Oh, yes! She's ancient."

"Cecily Devereux is five years younger than me," he said, looking down at her with his mirthful black eyes.

"Really! How old are you?"

Scarlett flushed as soon as she had said it. It was so forward of her! In her old life she never would have dreamed of asking a man something so personal as his age. But George did not seem perturbed.

"I am fifty," he told her, and Scarlett was surprised. Why, fifty seemed _so_ old! Fifty, in her mind, conjured a picture of Grandpa Fontaine, with his stooped shoulders and creased face. But George was nothing like Grandpa Fontaine! He was lithe and strong and graceful and upright, and—why, he just seemed younger than that!

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks that George was a year younger than Rhett. Why, Rhett would be fifty-one this year! Her mouth formed a little 'O' of surprise as she thought about it. She had not seen him in so long—a year—and very infrequently before that. Hadn't he looked a bit older the last time she had seen him? But Rhett wasn't old—couldn't ever _be_ old.

George did not ask her how old she was. That was the nicest thing about George—he never asked questions. Scarlett thought it his best trait. Still, she could not help volunteering her own age. She did not know why—she supposed she wanted him to know some little thing about herself. Her mind did not try to discern the reason.

"I am twenty-nine."

"That seems a very favorable age," he said pleasantly.

"Oh—yes," she fluttered, and was silent again.

They had reached the corner where Peach street turned into Canal. The sounds and color of Bourbon was only a block or two beyond that. Scarlett felt the same heady rush she always did when she passed it by, longing to be part of the whirl and gaiety. But when George turned and started toward it, she grabbed his arm.

"Oh—no! I can't."

He furrowed his brow. "Why not?"

"Because—because—someone might see me."

He smiled at her, his black eyes dancing under his silver hair. "Why shouldn't you want anyone to see you, you pretty thing?"

She turned her face away, unsure of how to answer. Tears welled in her eyes. She felt a soft touch on her shoulder.

"I am sorry," said George, with his old politesse. "I should not have asked." He took her arm and led her back to the house. Scarlett sniffled into her shoulder and her face burned crimson with all the things she could not say.

However, the next day, when they passed the corner, she turned and walked up the block to Canal. They found a café and had beignets and chicory and came back. And nothing horrible happened! They were just two people enjoying the afternoon together. The next day, they walked all the way to the park.

Every day after they went a little further than that, always with Scarlett setting the pace, and George following at a safe distance behind.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What do you want to do with your life?" Scarlett asked George one day, as they walked under the shady live-oaks that bordered Bourbon. They stopped in a square and bought lemonade from a street cart, sipping it in Jefferson Park, watching from the benches as the whirl of people passed.

"I don't know," he mused. "Lately I've been thinking about going west."

"West?"

"Yes—to Montana. Do you know where that is, Scarlett?"

She saw suddenly Rhett's florid face, heard his voice. "You are the most barbarously ignorant young person…" Did George think her ignorant, too? She snuck a glance at his face. It was as easy and open as it always was. She flushed.

"Somewhere—up north. Far away?"

"Yes—pretty far. I've been thinking I'd like to get into the horse trading business. I know a man who'd sell me a pair of pretty thoroughbreds. The army needs horses, and Montana is the best land for raising them this side of Virginia—and I won't go back to Virginia, Scarlett."

Her mind worked to fill in the gaps he had left. Horses—did he know _anything_ about them? She eyed him critically. He did not walk with the natural gait of the horseman—but his legs were thick with saddle muscles she had not noticed before. And something must have happened in Virginia—why else would he not want to go back there? Suddenly, she burned with curiosity. What was it that made him want to stay away?

She said, "But you're a doctor."

He nodded. "Yes. But you asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I don't like doctoring, Scarlett. I've seen too much sickness, too much pain, and death."

"I hope you don't go away, George. I should be lonely if you were gone."

"I probably won't go away at all, so you needn't worry. I was just answering your question. Besides, even if I really wanted to go, I couldn't. I haven't the money. My late wife's estate has not yet been probated—and if it ever is, I probably won't see a red cent, if her family has anything to say about it."

Scarlett's head had snapped up at this information. "Your wife?" she said, stupidly. "You have a wife?"

"_Had_ a wife," he corrected her, gently. "She died last spring."

"Oh—I'm so sorry." Scarlett paused respectfully, but her curiosity could not help but win out in the end. "George—how did she die?"

"She died having our child." His voice was steady, even casual, but for one moment his face was shaded, his true emotions veiled from her. With difficulty, he made his lips turn up in a smile, made his eyes fill with light again.

"Now, since you've opened the box and let the cat out, I'm going to be impertinent and ask you: What do you want to do with your life, Scarlett Jones?"

She thought for a while, twirling her parasol idly.

"Nothing," she said finally, thinking of Rhett, and her two children—three children. "I've done all that a woman can do, anyway—and some things a woman _can't_ do. There's nothing left for me."

Her voice had a hollow ring to it and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

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Somehow they had walked further and further every day, so that now it was not uncommon for them to stroll all the way to the end of Bourbon street, to the marina, where they always spent a long while watching sailboats bob and dip and swoop in the breeze.

"Oh, look!" she cried, one vibrant summer afternoon, pointing at a line of boats with full rigged sails and colors flying. They looked so bright and gay against the blue, blue sky. "Oh, how pretty? What is it?"

"It's a regatta," George said. "Shall we go and look?"

"Yes—let's!" Her face was lit up, her eyes were childishly bright. Scarlett looked like she had discovered a trove of hidden treasure—how she regretted keeping herself closed off from this city for so long! What other delights did it hold for her? What other pleasures had she so foolishly kept at arm's length.

They found a place at the crowded rail and watched as the boats began to race. One brightly painted sloop pulled off from the rest and surged ahead. "Look!" George shouted to her, above the din. "Look, Scarlett! Watch him!"

She turned her head in the direction he marked for her and froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. There, not five feet away, stood Maybelle Merriwether—Maybelle Picard, that is. Scarlett knew her at once. Her yellow hair was unfaded by the years, her face was still placid and unlined. She was so close that if Scarlett stretched out her arm she could have tapped her shoulder. What was she doing here?

The Zouave, Scarlett remembered. Tiny, monkey-faced Rene Picard had been born and raised in New Orleans—his family had owned some huge amount of acreage along the Mississippi River. Likely they had found a way to buy it back. No doubt the pie business was booming back home—back in Atlanta, she quickly corrected herself.

She's grown awfully fat, Scarlett thought automatically, her lips curving in a satisfied smile. But then she remembered her predicament and reared back in horror. Mother of God! Don't let her see me! Scarlett watched in sickening shock as Maybelle laughed and turned her head to speak to the lady beside her. Let me get away! she cried inwardly. But there was no place to go. A crush of bodies pressed against her, eager to see the boats, blocking her escape. Maybelle's eyes casually scanned the crowd and she stiffened as her eyes met Scarlett's own. The two women stared at each other, Scarlett's mouth open in panic, Maybelle's lip curled into an automatic sneer of recognition and disgust.

Scarlett reeled and fought her way through the throng with her elbows. Oh, why did this have to happen when everything was going so well? She had been happy here. She had been safe in New Orleans. Now Rhett would come and find her, and they would go on playing the same cat-and-mouse game that they had played in Atlanta.

She knew that Rhett would come and find her, for she knew that she was Rhett's one weakness. He could not stay away from her. He would not want to come, but he would come, and his nearness would torture her with possibilities of reconciliation. But he would not want to reconcile with her. She knew that.

George was at her shoulder and with a sob she turned and pressed her face against his coat.

"Take me home," she whispered. "Take me home—please."


	47. Chapter 47

_1878. New Orleans, Louisiana_.

…_Mrs. Raoul Picard tells me that she saw you in town last month and I have taken the liberty of asking around to determine your location. I hope you do not think yourself incognito, Scarlett. I would hate to disappoint you by telling you how easily you were found. Please rest assured that I will not seek you out. I am only glad that my curiosity as to your whereabouts has been satisfied…_

Scarlett dropped Rhett's letter into her lap and buried her face in her hands. Mary, Mother of God, it had begun again. It was just as she had suspected it would be. Rhett _said_ he would not come after her, but Scarlett knew that he would not be able to stay away. Of course, she had told him that she was planning to go to New Orleans. But she knew now that his curiosity would have been piqued by Maybelle's gossip. She would surely have circulated it around that Scarlett was wearing widow's weeds, and that she had been seen in the presence of a gentleman. Rhett's fatal flaw was his curiosity, where Scarlett was concerned, and his inability to believe what other people had to say. He always had to find things out for himself, and she knew he would not be able to stay away for long.

If he comes here… she thought. If he comes here he will lead me on and I will begin to hope—again. I mustn't let myself start to hope. I can't stand it. He will toy with me until I've almost got him in my grasp and then he will pull away. It is the way he's always done it. And I can't stand being upset again.

But oh! The idea of seeing him! For a moment she was dizzy with a heady rush of pleasure. It was as though Rhett were already before her, with his looming bulk and broad shoulders and every-present smells of bourbon and tobacco. Scarlett imagined that their faces were very close together—that she could feel the tickle of his close-clipped black moustache—hear his cruel laugh as he stepped back again, away from her. Rhett! Oh, Rhett!

She rubbed her wrists, where the faint scars still showed through the filmy black lawn of her long sleeves. He would come to her and he would make her love him all over again. It was his idea for her penance—would she ever get over doing her penance for being so foolish about Ashley Wilkes? Rhett would never let her get over it. No—she could not stand it.

She could not risk it.

She moved to the window and stared down at Peach street with eyes that were veiled over. New Orleans had seemed a safe haven and now it was not, anymore. Any rattle of carriage wheels might be him, coming for her. Any man in a Panama hat might be him.

She sat down at her dress and penned a short letter, telling Rhett that she was safe on Peach street, in the company of Mrs. Devereux. She might as well tell him everything. He would find it out sooner or later.

But if she had good luck, she would be gone before he made up his mind to come for her.

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"Do come in," Scarlett said to George, when he appeared in the doorway of the parlor. Mrs. Devereux was out—thank the Lord—and she was eager to say what she had to say before that lady came back. She had been waiting for George for a half an hour, at least, and when she heart his footsteps coming up the walk her heart began to pound like mad in her chest. She pressed her hand against it now, willing it to behave as it usually did. She felt as though she might faint.

"Come in," she said to George again. "There is something I want to—to say."

He looked interested and a little concerned at the trembling of her voice and the cloud upon her brow. He was such a kind man! Scarlett was quiet until he had seated himself in a chair and turned his eyes toward her questioningly. Then she spoke.

"You told me—once—that you wanted to go North—to Montana. Do—do you still think about that, George?"

He cocked his head and regarded her for a long moment. "Yes—I do—from time to time."

"You told me that you didn't have the money for it."

"That's right."

"What if…" she clasped her hands to still their shaking. "What if…"

George smiled. "Say it, Scarlett. It can't be that bad."

She faced him plainly, looking him in the eye. "I have a lot of money, George. I'd be willing to finance your operation. All you need do is say yes."

He looked confused—doubtful. "How much money? It would take a lot to start up a breeding operation, Scarlett. I don't suppose you would know very much about business, but—"

"I have fifty thousand dollars."

An electric silence spread out between them.

Finally George asked,

"What are your terms?"

She squared her shoulders and mustered her courage. "None—except that—except that you'd have to take me with you."

He stood and paced the room. Scarlett watched him from underneath her lowered lashes. George looked as though he were trying to reason with himself. Yet there was a peculiar, hungry light in his eyes. His dream was right before him—all he had to do was reach out, and take what she was offering—her money—and herself.

"Why?" He was trying to reason it out. "Why, Scarlett?"

"Oh, George! Aren't we friends? You told me this was what you wanted more than anything. And as your friend, I want you to be happy—"

"Don't play the fool with me." He was sternly gentle, as one would be with a child. "You are too smart for that. Why would you want to come along, Scarlett? To see the return on your investment first hand?"

"I've always wanted to see Montana…"

His hand touched her cheek, tenderly.

"Darling," he reminded her, "A month ago you had little idea where Montana even was. Tell me the truth."

"Well, after you mentioned it I got to thinking…"

"Scarlett."

"I need to get away." She said it simply, straight-forwardly, dropping all pretence of ignorance and as all her simpering and coquetry fell away she had nothing left but a simple honest dignity that touched his heart. George turned and stared out of the window onto the rainy landscape. When he turned again, something about his mouth was firm. He is going to say yes, Scarlett thought, her heart light with hope. He is going to say yes!

He surprised her by saying, "If you were to come with me, Scarlett—you must do so as my wife."

"Oh!" she cried, as though she had been pierced in the heart. "Oh! But I don't love you!"

She spoke before she thought, and she flushed as she realized what she had said. But to her surprise, he did not look dismayed. He smiled, ruefully.

"I didn't think you did."

"Then why—do you love me?"

"No."

"No?"

"No—but I'm very fond of you, Scarlett. I think I would make you a good husband—and you would make me a good wife—because we would not expect any thing from one another. We will need each other, if we are to go so far away. There is a hardiness to your spirit that would fare well out west. Mostly I am concerned for your honor. Think of how it would look—to travel all that way together, and not be man and wife. There are plenty of women who are not—ladies—out west. But you, dear, are a lady, and I would not have your reputation sullied."

"My honor!" Her face was ugly, green, her freckles standing out against her skin in stark relief. A wild light flashed in her eyes. "My reputation! God's nightgown!"

She began to gabble out words and names that fell together into a storm and torrent of her history. She sobbed—at times, she screamed. She told him everything. She could not stop herself, though she knew that she must. But she could not stop.

"So you see I'm not a lady. I never was—it was Melanie who was. That was always Melanie. And Melanie—I couldn't tell her—Ashley—and then Rhett—she died, George. I was never able to tell her—that I was sorry—that I loved her. Oh, if she only hadn't died. You don't understand. I always meant to be a lady, like my mother—when I had the money. I always meant to be a lady—when I had the chance."

She could speak no more, do nothing but weep incoherently into his chest. His arm was warm about her shoulders. When she raised her tear-stained face she saw that he looked just as he always did, and his familiar unflappable nature was comforting. For the first time, she felt as though she were confronted with a gentleman—a true gentleman.

"I always meant," she repeated in a whisper, desperate to assure him that she meant it, "I always meant to be a lady when I had the chance."

His dark eyes found her own.

"This can be your chance," he said. "Take it, Scarlett. Begin again."


	48. Chapter 48

_1879. Clayton, Montana_.

Scarlett turned from the paddock where she was watching the colts prance and frolic against the bright spring sky. Two beautiful, glossy, mahogany colts, long- and sturdy-legged, the first of her and George's to be born. Their brood mare had foaled twins, and it had been touch and go at the beginning. They had been in danger of losing both the colts and the mare, and what would they have done if that had happened?

Scarlett thought back to the late nights she and George had spent in the stable, laboring over the sick mare, feeding the babies from bottles, covering them with blankets to keep out the cold. All the worrying—they had spent most of Scarlett's money on the house and ranch and horses. If they could only save the mare! Then their investment may not be lost!

But by some miracle of God, not only the mare but both little colts had pulled through and were as pretty and healthy as horseflesh could be. Sprited, too—they had a way of tossing their red heads that reminded Scarlett of the Tarleton twins. She had already taken to calling the pair of them 'Brent' and 'Stu.' A man had come all the way from Wyoming to look at them; George had accepted four thousand dollars as payment for one, with another thousand to be delivered when the colt was a year old and trained, and ready to be sold. Four thousand in the bank, and another on the way! Scarlett's palms itched as she flapped her rope in the colts' face, turning them to the left. They raced around the paddock, and her blood raced through her veins.

Scarlett was good with the horses—much better than George. She teased him that it was because she was Irish.

"Don't talk to _me_ about the Irish," smiled George, his accent more pronounced in this place where everyone spoke with an out-land twang.

George was not like other men—he recognized his own failings and stepped back to let cooler and more capable heads and hands prevail when he himself could not. When it became apparent to him that Scarlett had a talent for horseflesh he deferred to her judgment, and the breaking of the colts became her task entirely. Oh, he mucked the stables and groomed as best he could, and supervised the feedings, but he did not fool himself that he was the one in charge. He called the horses, all four a deep, reddish color, "Scarlett's scarlets," and gave her a rueful smile.

"I suppose I'm destined to be a doctor after all," he told her with not a hint of self-pity. "One can't escape one's lot in life, and that is mine."

The fledgling town of Clayton was only too glad to let him take up his nobler profession. It was a little town, not five years old, one of those western towns that springs up seemingly overnight on the vast prairie. It had a feed store, a barber, a saloon and a whore—Miss Maisie Cummings, formerly of Mobile, Alabama—but it sorely lacked a doctor. The barber had served as a makeshift surgeon until this point, and he was only too glad to step aside and let George take over. The townspeople were glad, too.

It was not uncommon for him to be called away in the middle of supper and stay away all night, returning in the early morning to give her a kiss on her shiny black head and fall dazedly into bed. Scarlett did not mind his absence. She settled herself in front of the fire and pulled her great, leatherbound account books to her chest.

That was another of Scarlett's sole responsibilities—balancing the books. She was surprised to find that George had no head for figures. He spent money easily enough but he did not know what to do with the money he earned. Scarlett waved him away while she managed the accounts. Half their income she put in gold, deposited in the vault in Billings. The rest she invested in the ranch.

One of her most foolish expenditures had been a little, hand-lettered sign which hung at the end of their lane, proclaiming their ranch to be 'Tara.' They did not have furniture, or proper china, or linens or books or carpets, but Scarlett was inordinately proud of that sign.

"Why Tara?" George asked her, and Scarlett thought back to that fertile piece of land, so far away from her now, in distance and feeling, that it might be from another life entirely. How could she explain to him the beauty of the yellow Flint river and the springing green cotton—the luminousness of a magnolia blossom against glossy dark leaves—the singing of the Negroes in the evenings, the languor of the summer days? She did not try to explain, and George smiled his easy smile.

"Tara was the seat of the high kings of Ireland," he told her. "And I feel like a king, here, on our land—with you as my queen."

She could have laughed—how could he feel like a king when they had next to nothing? Their house was little more than a log-cabin, chinked with mortar, roofed with rough-hewn shingles. The stables were nicer. And yet George always seemed happy to come home and find her sitting up by the fire, her boots by the door and her books in hand.

He was such a kind man! She was always surprised by it. He never had a harsh word for her. He never bothered her with those things that other men seemed to prize so highly. He did not insist she share his bed and he openly praised her for the things that had once made her outcast—her sharp eye, her quick mind, her willingness to work.

For Scarlett was working—harder than she had ever worked before. Her hands grew callused and she did not care. Her hair was windblown and her face tanned by the sun. She wore men's boots and a man's hat, but balked at the dungarees that George brought home for her. "As long as I've breath in me, I'll wear a dress."

She was too busy during the days to think about anything but at night, sometimes, she thought of other things, her mind swimming with them. She missed Rhett. Her days were pleasant enough but the spice was missing from them—the thrill, the dangerous undercurrent, was gone. She missed Rhett's taunting. She missed his caresses. Sometimes her body cried out so strongly to be held that she sobbed with loneliness and frustration into her pillow.

She missed her children. She did not think of Bonnie if she could help it, or the baby she had lost. But she did allow herself to think of Wade and Ella from time to time. She could not help but think of them. Ella would be thirteen now—a woman in her own right, no longer a child. Wade was eighteen—a grown man. She wondered what kind of people they were—would become. Was Wade going to university, as she had always wanted? Did Ella had proper dresses, and music lessons? She thought sometimes about sending for them. But could they, children of the south, flourish in a wild, unsettled place such as this?

Where would Ella go to school? And Wade would be a rancher. Oh, there was nothing wrong with being a rancher, but she had wanted something more for him. She let them be. She wouldn't think about them.

She missed Melanie. How many times she had taken for granted Melanie's friendship! Scarlett longed for a female friend, but she had made few friends among the women in the little town. She and George were so far away from everything down at far western end of town, away from the main road. They went every Sunday night to have dinner in the saloon, where George talked and smoked with the men about the price of horseflesh. The ladies were calm and quiet on these occasions. They greeted "Mrs. Doctor" nicely enough but did not ask her to join their little circle by the fire. She praised their babies (though she secretly thought those fat, dirty-faced children one small step up from utterly repulsive). She tried her hardest to see past the women's faded calicoes and the dirt underneath their fingernails. She tried to talk with them as Melanie would have done.

She let Melanie be her guide, and the hard veneer that had encased her, protected her for so long, began to crack and fall away.

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Josiah came to them in the summertime, shivering and delirious with fever. Scarlett found him huddled on her doorstep when she awoke one morning.

George had gone into Billings with to deposit money at the bank—they had sold another of the colts and another of the mares was about to foal. She hardly ever missed George, but she did when she found Josiah. For a week, the old man hovered between life and death and though Scarlett labored over him, she was no where close to certain that he would survive. She knew not from whence he came, or how he had ended up in this part of the country, on her own doorstep, of all places! And she began to think, as he wasted away, that she would never know.

She was surprised one morning to come into the little sick-room and find him sitting up in bed. Scarlett considered his recovery a miracle straight from the hands of God. She only remembered bits and drabbles about her days working in the war hospital in Atlanta. The fact that he had survived her rough nursing elevated him to a position slightly lower than the archangels in Scarlett's eyes.

She was never to learn from where exactly Josiah came, or how he had come to be with her, but that she attributed to a direct intervention of God, as well. He was a man of few words, and the only thing he ever said to her was,

"I'm mighty beholden to you, ma'am. You've saved my life and I don't pretend otherwise—and a man can't never pay back the debt he owes for his life."

Scarlett's eyes welled as she thought of Will Benteen, and she understood that Josiah would stay.

Josiah built a little shanty out beyond the paddocks, with his own hands, and he took his residence there with little fuss or aplomb. George was mildly bemused by him, but Scarlett thanked God for him every day. Every morning he was out warming up the colts before Scarlett awoke, and he stayed by her side until well after sunset. They worked together through the days, and Scarlett found Josiah to be a good deal of help.

"You must be Irish, too—you have such a way with horses," she surmised to him, and Josiah shook his iron-gray curls.

"Not Irish, ma'am," he said, but he did not volunteer what, in fact, he was.

He knew how to approach the other people in the town, and though Scarlett would never know of it, Josiah began to tell the other folks about her whenever he went into the saloon, the store, or the blacksmith's forge. He told the people of Clayton what a fine little woman "Mrs. Doctor" was—what a hard, quick mind she had under her cap of black curls, her inexhaustable capability for hard work, her way with the colts. The townspeople began to have their opinions changed of the doctor's wife, who they had once thought prissy and citified. They liked Josiah straight off—no one could ever resist liking Josiah. And if Josiah said Mrs. Darcy was a worthy sort of woman, then she must be.

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It was not until the night that the church burned that Scarlett fully won over the hearts and minds of her neighbors.

The church was the pride and joy of the town of Clayton. The people had taken up a canvas to have it built, with even the most desperately poor of the neighborhood contributing. It would _such_ a distinction in their town, to have a church! There was not another place of worship in a hundred miles.

Scarlett contributed reluctantly to the campaign. She did not bother with things like church. She had long ago begun to think that God was going to do what he was going to do whether she bothered with him or not. Besides, she was too busy to spend half her Sundays fanning herself and listening to some go-preacher pontificate. Who would take care of the horses if she were away?

It was Josiah who convinced her to make a donation. He put it to her plainly, and respectfully, but Scarlett still scowled.

"I don't give a rat about that church," she said darkly. "Stuff and nonsense! Why, what this town really needs is a grocer's—or a telegraph office—or to fix the fence along the main road. It's silly to bother about a church when the money could be put to good use elsewhere. And it's going to be a Baptist church, and I'm not Baptist. I'm Catholic." Or at least, she had used to be.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," said Josiah, "But a lot of folks around here think otherwise. To them, religion is more important than food or fences. And I know they'd think mighty highly of you if you was to put some money toward the thing."

"Fine." Scarlett waved her hand carelessly. "I'll write a draft for a thousand dollars. That should build them a church and then some, since the Baptists don't bother with nice things like stained glass and statues. Good grief! That church is going to be ugly as a plank."

"A thousand dollars is too much." Josiah was shrewd.

"Too much! I should think you'd let everyone else be the judge of that. They'd be glad to get it."

"No'm," said Josiah patiently. "They'd think you was throwing your money about, trying to be powerful like—Miz Darcy, they'd see it as a slap in their faces. They're poor folks, most of the others, and they'd take your money—but they're proud. They'd see it as just another way in which you was different from them."

A glimmer of understanding passed through her green eyes. Scarlett nodded her head. She carefully counted out fifty dollars in greenbacks—Josiah said it should not be paid in gold. Gold was ostentatious.

First Free Will Baptist Church of Clayton was built on the little grassy hill just outside of town, and Scarlett gritted her teeth every time she passed it. It was just as ugly as she had suspected, and the bells which tolled out every hour bothered her when she tried to sleep and made her horses toss their heads in agitation. But the people of the town were very proud of their church, and Scarlett tried hard to be, also.

She was walking back to the house one crisp, early morning in October, eager to be in bed, for another of the mares had foaled the night before. A little filly this time, which Scarlett had decided to call Letty—the foal was the very picture of Letty Tarleton, all glossy red, and Letty had always had a long sort of face. She brought her aching shoulders up and then down, rolling her head from side to side. The air was wet and hazy—a frightful storm had rolled through in the night. The lightning had made her cower in the corner of the stables and the thunder had seemed so loud and frightening overhead. But now the night was clear again, and dark, the deepest darkness, just before the dawn. Scarlett turned her head and cried out as she saw a line of red blooming on the horizon.

Fire! She knew instinctually what it was. Her second thought was, Gracious heavens—it's at the church!

Oh, the church, that they had wanted so badly and been so proud of! The old Scarlett O'Hara, or Hamilton, or Kennedy, or Butler, would not have cared, but Scarlett Darcy did! She felt it keenly. These people had so little. What a shame if they should lose their church!

Before she had even realized it, she was running up the hill. The roof of the church was aflame and if she did not do something, it might spread. She darted into the smoking building, covering her mouth with her hand and coughing, and fumbled for the rope in the bell tower. With all her strength she pulled it again and again, hearing it peal out through the still night darkness, summoning help, waking the folks in their beds.

Scarlett fought her way through the thick, acrid smoke and ran down the hill as fast as her legs could carry her. She pumped the windless of the well, filling two buckets, and ran back up the hill again.

Josiah had poked his head out of his shanty, awakened by the bell. "Fire!" Scarlett shouted the word at him, and watched as he sprang immediately into action. He needed no further prompting.

"Hurry," she cried, "Oh, hurry!"

The pulpit was beginning to smoke. Scarlett flung one bucket's worth of water onto it and watched in livid horror as the flames began to snake down the walls. In an instant, without thinking of her modesty or how it would look if anyone saw her, she tugged her dress over her head and plunged it into the second bucket. Clad only in her chemise and petticoat, she beat the wet fabric against the flames, stamped them out with her boots.

Again and again, until her arms burned as if they too were on fire, and a foul, bad smell told her that her hair was being singed. Still, she did not stop. Her mind was suddenly back at that horrible day during the war when the Yankees had fired Tara. She had not let the fire lick her then and she must not let it lick her now! Through the flames, Scarlett thought she saw Melanie's white, determined face, and she cried out in sheer loneliness and desperation as she beat harder, harder, against the flames that spread like crawling, living things across the floor.

"Melanie! Melanie!" she cried, and through the roaring of the fire, she thought that she heard Melanie's voice, as gentle, low and sweet as it had always been. _You are the beatenest sister I ever knew…Scarlett...Scarlett darling._

Melanie's lips curved into a gentle smile and she was gone, and Scarlett was alone again.

Suddenly, she was not only stamping the flames, but stamping out the vestiges of the old life she had lived: the hunger, the despair, the fear, the disapproving faces of the Atlanta people. Rhett—she was fighting against his scorn and pity and betrayal. She was beating back death and fear and poverty and want and all the old Southern customs that had jailed her for so long.

The past ceased to exist. She thought not about the future. There was nothing except this moment, and in it, she ceased to be Scarlett O'Hara. She was something new, and fresh, and fire-born.

Just when she thought she could not lift her arms once more she became conscious of another person in the room—Josiah was beating a rag rug against the flames. The sight of him filled her with new energy. She was no longer alone. Together—together they could beat it!

She coughed and coughed until she thought she might be sick and ran out to dip her cloth in water once again. Her spirits soared when she saw that outside the church was a line of people from the town, passing buckets up and down in a chain. She grabbed the bucket from the man on the end and rushed back into the church to throw it on the blazing altar.

It was well into daylight by the time the fire had been put completely out. Scarlett brushed a hand across her face and knew that she must look as black as a Negro, but she did not care. They had saved the church. Portions of the roof would have to be replaced and the pulpit was beyond repair but the church was still standing! Still standing!

She made her way on shaky legs out of the smoking building and the crowd, which had grown silent, parted before her. Scarlett became conscious that no one was talking—they were all just _looking_ at her. Their faces were full of frank approval for this slight young wife of the doctor, and Scarlett meeting their eyes, thought for the first time that she was one of them.

How strange! She thought. In Atlanta, it wouldn't matter if I'd saved Mrs. Merriwether's own house—with Mrs. Merriwether in it—she and Mrs. Meade and all the other old cats would _still_ have nothing to say except that I'd disgraced my family by going about in public in my shimmy! Here, the people did not seem to care if she were completely naked. In fact, they seem to respect me more because of what I did. How strange, she thought again. How dashedly strange this breed of people are!

But then she thought suddenly: Perhaps it is the others who are strange—people like Mrs. Meade and all of them—who think decorum more important than action. Scarlett thought that they would not be able to survive on this rough frontier. But she had done it. She had won out against the elements; she was surviving.

She felt George's arm go around her waist and her mind went round and round in circles. She was so exhausted. Josiah supported her on her other side, and the three of them walked together down the hill toward home. When Scarlett looked back at the assembled throng, she saw admiration on every face.

And she knew, then, that she was finally _home_.


	49. Chapter 49

_1879. Clayton, Montana_.

"That's it, Katie…one more big push, there's a good girl." Scarlett took her place at the foot of the bed and positioned herself between the youngest Mueller girl's legs, every bone in her body weary and aching, yet altogether cautious and alert, poised to catch the child whenever it finally decided to make its appearance.

The girl struggled and her face changed from red to an alarming shade of purple as she bore down valiantly again. Yet again her efforts were fruitless and Scarlett wanted to scream as she saw the crown of the child's head recede into its mother's body once more. God's nightgown! She grit her teeth as perspiration oozed from her pores.

She had been cooped up in the Mueller's stuffy cabin for a day and a half, now, and Katie's baby was no closer to being born as it was when she had first come to help her along. A trickle of sweat ran down her neck and her stomach rumbled, and Scarlett cursed in rapid succession Katie, her baby, and the roaring wood fire that made the whole room resemble nothing so much as the furnace in the Bible that had been heated seventy times seven times.

And George—Scarlett saved the best of her curses for George. If only he were here, doing this backbreaking work of trying to bring an ornery child into the world! But he had been away tending to an outbreak of measles in Livingston, twenty miles and a day's ride away, when Johnnie Mueller had come to seek help for his daughter. Scarlett had agreed readily—she cursed herself now for her readiness, and for the words she had uttered to console the worried man:

"Why, don't worry, John. First babies are easy as pie."

Easy as pie! Scarlett knew from her tender homemaking skills that making a pie was no easy feat, either—she only meant that a first baby would be likely to come quickly. She remembered back to the time she had had with Wade (such a curious feeling, to think of Wade. Her firstborn, living a life that was totally unknown to her!). Mammy had barely had time to hustle Scarlett into the house and boil some water before Wade made his appearance. Who could have possibly thought that a baby would take a day—a day and a half—to be born!

"You like Katie Mueller," she muttered to herself now, trying to stem the tide of resentment that swelled within her breast. And it was true. Scarlett did like the girl. She and Scarlett shared a quick, headstrong manner besides a first name. The Mueller's were the closest neighbors to Tara ranch, and George's best customers, since there were about a dozen of them, all living in close quarters, and coming down weekly with some new ailment that spread like wildfire among the ranks. Katie was the youngest girl, and unmarried. This baby was a _souvenir_ of a French trader making his way up to Alberta. The family's matter-of-factness about finding their maiden daughter in such a predicament had been surprising even to Scarlett's coarse sensibility.

"But there's already twelve mouths to feed," she murmured, helping Katie to stand and preparing to help her pace up and down the floor in an attempt to speed the labor along. "What's one more? Why not make it an even baker's dozen?"

Up and down they walked, until Katie could bear it no longer. Scarlett helped her back to bed and went to the kitchen to get a fresh basin of water and deliver a report to the family, clustered there, awaiting their newest kinsmen.

"Nothing," she said wearily, to the crowd of upturned faces. "_Nein_," she translated to the old German grandmother who rocked in her chair by the stove.

The men nodded, but the Mueller women—Katie's mother, sisters, and old grandmamma—glowered at her in response. Scarlett had banished them to the kitchen at the start of day two. They were like a brood of clucking hens, and had been making Katie so nervous she couldn't concentrate on the task at hand. They resented being put aside, but Scarlett was too exhausted to care. She refilled her basin and on impulse, carried off a platter full of sandwiches from the table, narrowly resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at them all.

Katie was fitfully sleeping and Scarlett thought of waking her before deciding to let her sleep. She would need her strength later—when push came to shove. Scarlett deposited her weary bones on an old cane-bottomed chair and parted the curtain to look out at the wintry world.

Everything was blanketed in white. She was still so unused to snow, coming from the lush Georgia climate, and the total transformation of the familiar landscape into something so unfamiliar shocked her. A little restless wind picked up the flakes and scattered them against the window-pane.

The road was completely covered, and Scarlett thought about George. Surely he must be back at home by now? He had left on Monday. He would have gotten to Livingston by Tuesday—stayed two days—and left yesterday. It had only begun to snow this morning—surely he had reached home safely? A sudden low rumble like the firing of cannon made her jump and distracted her train of thought.

The sound came again, from the west, and Scarlett's disoriented mind knew what it must be. George had spoken to her of thunder-snow but she had not really believed in it until now. How strange—how strange. Her body relaxed but her mind was still racing, because for a moment she had been in another room, many miles and years away from this one, in the heat of a hot September afternoon, with the sounds of cannon roaring in the not-too-distant distance. Waiting for another baby to be born.

_Melanie_, she thought, and blinked away the tears that had welled suddenly in her eyes.

How she had hated Melanie that day, and prayed for her to die! At first, out of sheer hatred for Melanie herself—Melanie, mother of Ashley's baby, Melanie, who was keeping her marooned in the house on Peachtree street, Melanie, who would get them all captured and killed by the damn Yankees! And then later, out of terror and fear and awe over Melanie's suffering—surely she could not live through such agony? Surely death would be a blessed relief for them both?

But Melanie had not died. And Scarlett had not gotten over her old silliness in time to appreciate what a rare friend she was—what a gem, a stronghold, what a bastion of strength and love and what a kind face in a sea of disapproving ones. _Oh, valiant, loving little Melanie! If you had not died, how different my life might have been! _

Katie groaned in her bed and Scarlett pulled herself from the window, to set grimly again about her task. But this time, she was not alone. She positioned herself against Katie's shoulders, bracing the girl so that she could push, and there was a ghostly touch against Scarlett's own weary arms, shifting part of her burden, relieving it, taking it from her.

_Oh, Scarlett, how brave you are, darling, how strong…if only I could be brave like you._ Scarlett felt her weary muscles unknot, as though a cool, tender hand had been pressed upon her brow.

"That's it, Katie…one more big push—there's a good, brave girl."

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Scarlett stayed long enough to see that the mother and baby were resting well, and to see the child's name—Maria Barbara Catharina Scarlett Mueller—entered into the family Bible. But before the ink was dry on the page she was bundling herself into her wrap, winding her muffler about her neck, pulling on her gloves.

"You must stay," said Johnnie Mueller in his halting English. "It no good to go out." He made a gesture to the window, which had been caked with snow and ice.

But Scarlett had no intentions of staying in that cramped, over-heated house another night. "I'll manage," she said crisply, and she believed she could. Tara was a little less than a mile away—only over the next ridge. Before the snow had started she had been able to see her own chimney smoke curling whitely against the pale gray sky.

She set off in high spirits, glad to be out of the birthing room, glad to be standing, and walking, away from the screams of pain and the fretful flutterings of so many worried family members. She kept her head down to keep the blinding snow out of her face and her feet moved mechanically, carrying her toward home.

But—_was _she going toward home? The snow was piled in drifts now, obscuring the road and the fenceposts, and when she lifted her head all that she saw was a wide, unruffled expanse of white, with no distinguishing characteristic upon it. She couldn't have been walking for more than a half an hour—and yet, when she turned back, she could not see the glowing panes of light that were the Mueller's windows.

A little frisson of panic crawled down her spine as she stood still and thought of what to do.

Her mind raced with stories she had heard, told around her own dinner table, around the bar in the saloon. She had heard of people who had been lost in snow-storms. Men whose eyes had bled from snow-blindness—children who toddled away and were found frozen to death only yards from their front doors. People who had gone out into the white swirling night—a night such as _this_—and had never been seen again…until the thaw.

She let out a cloudy breath and tried to think.

_The stars_, she thought. She had a sudden memory of laying in a warm bed, her head pillowed on Rhett's arm, as he described to her his days of blockade running. He had navigated using the stars. Whenever it is night, he had said, you can tell north by looking for the north star—the brightest star in the sky. Scarlett shielded her face from the driving snow and looked up at the blank, eerily white sky, lit from behind the clouds by the light of a dim moon.

There were no stars to be seen.

Her hands and feet felt numb and awkward with cold and she thought longingly of the blazing fires of the Muellers' hearth. What a fool she was to leave it! Oh, she must keep moving. If she stopped moving she would freeze to death. And yet—she was so tired—so weary. She had not slept in days. She wanted nothing more than to lie down against the frozen ground and sleep—for a little bit.

Tears formed and froze on her lashes before she could dash them away. She had been moving for a long time now—an hour? Or more, or less? She could not tell. Where was home? There were no signs of life against the vast empty prairie. What if everyone else on earth had died and she was the last one living in the world?

"Help me!" she cried, panicking. "Help me—oh, help!"

The wind caught her words, and took them. There was no response. She felt suddenly alone, more alone than she had ever felt in her life. Was this how she would die, then? Was this the end of Scarlett O'Hara? To survive death at the hands of Yankee captors—slow starvation at Tara—to come through fire and sickness and fear and desperation only to be frozen to death on the prairie, less than a mile from home?

Her children—she would never see her children again. The thought pained her more than she ever thought it would. She had never counted on seeing them again but the cold hard truth that she _would_ not was almost too much for her to bear. And there was Rhett. How she might have liked to be held in his arms _once_ more. She half-fell, half-slumped to the icy ground, weak at the thought of his strong, hard-muscled arms so safe and comforting around her body. Or perhaps it was only the cold.

Rhett. She would never see him again, never again be held by him, and the thought was like a knife through her heart.

She could not tell how long she lay there, huddled in the snow. Time became vast and meaningless. She must be fading in and out, for she would sometimes give a little start and realize that she had been thinking of nothing for the preceding minutes—or was it seconds? Or hours?

She entered a dreamlike state. She was no longer very cold, but she was not warm. She had no ability to feel. The howling of the wind sounded very far away but her pulse was hot and heavy in her ears and throat. She thought she heard a baby crying, from somewhere. She thought she saw Melanie's face, somewhere on the other side of the swirling flakes.

And then she thought she saw a tall, dark figure looming toward her. _Rhett! _She felt herself lifted in a pair of strong arms and could have wept with the joy of it.

"Hush, my darling. Hush, my good girl. You're safe."

It was Rhett—wasn't it?—but the voice was wrong. She drifted out of consciousness.

Later—but how much later? She could not tell—she awoke and was warm, with a feather bed underneath her and warm blankets over her, with a hot brick at her feet. She stretched lazily in the dark room, still feeling the weight of Rhett's arms, and thinking of the touch of his skin against hers.

Scarlett opened her eyes and saw George's worried, handsome face peering down at her and the light, buoyant feeling in her heart was whisked away. It was not Rhett. It had not been Rhett. She could have cried with the unfairness of it.

"Oh, George," she cried, in hurt confusion, burying her face in his neck.

She felt him tremble.

"Scarlett," he murmured, "Scarlett—darling." And she knew two things suddenly from the way his voice shook.

One—that he had been worried about her—terribly worried. Oh, it felt _good_ for someone to care—to give a damn!

She also knew then that George had begun to love her.

They had both sworn, when they married, that they were not in love—that they would not allow themselves to love. They had each loved, in turn, and been hurt by it. _Never again_, had been George's wry wedding-toast, and Scarlett had echoed it: _Never_, ever, _again_.

And yet he loved her now. He _did_. She could feel it in the way he held her, and when she pulled back, she could see it in his eyes. She felt sorry for him, for she could not love him back. Oh, he must love her! She had seen that look before, in Rhett's eyes. Why had she never noticed that when it mattered?

Suddenly the arms around her were not George's arms, the cheek pressed against her own was not his fair one, but a dark skin stubbled with whiskers. She thought she could smell brandy and cigar-smoke, the way one smells good things to eat in a hunger-dream. She went heady with the scent of _him_, and it was not George who she pulled to her breast in a passionate embrace.

"Kiss me," she commanded, and though George obeyed, it was not his fevered lips that met her own.

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_1880. Clayton, Montana_.

Somewhere, a baby was crying.

Scarlett pulled her eyes open with difficulty and saw George's beaming face as he leaned down to place a cool hand on her brow. He stood, satisfied. No fever.

It had been a difficult birth and there had been times in it when he had thought of his Laura, and how she had died in child-bed, taking their baby with her. But there had never been any danger of that this time, he reminded himself. Scarlett was not Laura—no, she was altogether a different breed, hardy and exuberant, while Laura had been frail and fragile.

All the same, he was glad it was safe over.

Scarlett licked her dry lips, and George watched her mouth work as it tried to form the question. He laid a hand caressingly over hers and smiled, and then turned to the bassinet by the window, taking up the precious bundle in his arms.

Scarlett's green eyes glinted as she beheld the small, sleeping face. The baby's features were small but perfectly formed. It held its fists up to its little cheeks and its mouth worked hungrily. _My child_, Scarlett thought, with a faint shock. She looked from the baby's face to George's proud one. _Our child_.

"A girl," George said. "What shall we call her?"

Scarlett put out on fingertip and traced the baby's square, Irish jaw, her full, pink mouth, her little, up-turned nose and stark black brows, that stood out against her skin like butterfly feelers. The tip-tilted eyes were closed, fans of dark, bristly lashes touching her velvety cheeks. She did not need to open them for Scarlett to know that those eyes behind those lashes would be a deep, brilliant, bonnie blue.

A girl. A daughter. Scarlett had a daughter named for her mother, and a daughter named for two queens. This time, she would have a daughter named for her friend—her best friend—her sister.

"What shall we call her?" asked George again, and this time Scarlett whispered a name, laying her hand on the baby's black, fuzzy curls. She said it like a prayer, a charm against all evil, a benediction, a wish for what this small, unformed female would become:

"Melanie."


	50. Chapter 50

Scarlett pulled herself upright with a jolt, the morning sun warm on her face. How long had she been asleep?

At some point she had laid down on the settee and someone—probably Josiah—had laid an afghan over her shoulders. She pushed it aside irritably, angry with herself for falling asleep when she had not meant to.

She could hear Josiah out in the yard, calling to the colts, and the pounding of hooves on the hard-packed dirt. Scarlett stood, numb despite her stolen minutes of sleep, and made her way down the hall-way toward George's room.

The boy—Kin—was awake. His eyes were fixed on the window and when they met Scarlett's own, she jumped in surprise. "God's nightgown!"

A corner of his mouth turned up in a feeble smile and she blushed as she felt his gaze rake over her still-slender form. George had never looked at her that way after the time that they had lost their heads and made little Melanie. Scarlett might not have minded if he _had_—she had grown awfully fond of George—and a solitary bed was cold comfort on one of the long, cold prairie nights. But George was an Englishman and reserved—and saving their one brief, passionate tumble he had always carefully avoided any outward sign of intimacy toward her again.

Excepting when he had been on his death-bed. Then, his eyes glittering with fever, he had begged her to let down her hair so that he might bury his face in it—but he had called her 'Laura.' She had not minded—and had had her own brief flash of shame as she remembered his body moving over hers—and her own voice calling, insistently, "Rhett—Rhett—Rhett."

Scarlett shook herself, dispersing memories. She pulled the neckline of her dress up over her bosom self-consciously, but the boy's eyes had already shifted again, toward the open doorway. If he was a dog, she thought, her own lips curving in amusement, he'd have his ears pricked up. Scarlett sat down by the bed and busied herself in removing his bandages.

"She's sleeping yet, I expect," she said in a casual tone, and saw the boy's face relax. "She was up half the night sitting by your bed—I had to threaten her with the horsewhip to get her to go lie down. Would you like me to go get her?"

There was the almost imperceptible movement of his head—no. Scarlett shrugged, and brought the lamp closer to inspect his wound. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle and though the edges were raw and ragged there was no sign of infection. She placed a hand to his forehead, which was warm with sleep only. No fever. Good.

"I think you'll live," she told him.

Kin seemed not to have heard her. His ears seemed pricked up again, he was listening for the sounds of other movements, signs that they were others in the house.

"My friends?" he rasped. "My—friend?" He sounded and looked so very young—a boy who has lost his playmate.

Scarlett grasped his hand, surprised to feel her eyes pricking with tears. Minutely, she shook her head and saw the light go from his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, but he turned his face to the wall.

They sat in a silence that stretched out between them. Outside Josiah called to the horses—"Hi! Hi!" There was the faint cry of a hawk circling overhead. Small sleepy sounds came from the room across the hall where the girls slept. Scarlett heard little Melly murmur in her sleep and tears welled again as she heard Ella's sleepy babble in answer. She thought of the red strands, mixed with the black, mingled together on the pillow—the way that Ella held the solid baby-body against her own, the way she had always held on to Bonnie. Her two girls. Her daughters.

Suddenly she was crying, great, gasping sobs, the tears coursing down her face in hot torrents. She rocked over her lap, as though she held a baby there, her arms cradling the empty space. She would never forget the commingled looks of shock—relief—and hurt—that had played across Ella's face at the moment of recognition. She rocked and rocked and thought back to the time before Ella had been born. Scarlett had not wanted her then. Her mills were _just_ up and running, and there had been that business with the Klan… But after that. Scarlett had sudden, vivid memories of the child's lisping voice, and grasping hands, always waved away in irritation. Each was as painful as a pinprick against her heart.

What if one time she had taken that grubby hand and kissed it, or joined her own voice together with Ella's childish one in the funny songs that her Pa had taught her when she was just a little girl? Would that have made a difference, now? Would the knowledge that she had done right by her daughter just once made a dent against the huge weight of guilt that Scarlett felt all these years later?

_A cat's a better mother than you_. Rhett had said that to her, once, and Scarlett had prickled with indignation, thinking what a varmint he was, to always insult her the way he did. She had always done that, taking words at their simplest, most uncomplicated meaning, not taxing her pretty head with deep thoughts on the nature of her character, her actions. Scarlett went cold as she remembered those dark days after Bonnie's death, when she had wondered why God had not taken Ella instead. She thought back to Ella, as she had seen her last night, her shirt-front stained with blood, and now she had a glimmering hope that perhaps God was good? He might have taken her then, but he had not. He had spared her, and brought her here—so that Scarlett might make amends.

But could she? Could Ella ever forgive her? The task seemed so daunting that Scarlett slumped further in her chair.

There was a light touch on her bent head—Kin had reached up to stroke her hair, lightly, and Scarlett looked down and found his blue eyes full of pity. What remarkably blue eyes he had! So expressive—and so kind. She recalled herself, and sat up, dashing the water from her eyes.

"She's my girl," Scarlett told him, and was surprised at the secret note of pride in her voice. She _was_ proud of her girl—so tall and pretty and capable-looking. "She's my daughter," she repeated, in a voice that was true and strong. And as she looked down at Kin again she saw that he already knew—he did not look surprised. He only looked faintly fearful, as though he did not know what would happen next.

"What happens now?" he wondered, still sounding very young and lost.

"We'll think about that tomorrow," Scarlett said, and pulled the covers up over him again.

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What _would_ she tell Ella, when the time came to tell her something? Tomorrow, tomorrow, pattered Scarlett's feet down the hallway. I won't think of it now. I'm too tired to think of it now—all my thoughts are whirling around like trapped animals. I'll go and lay down and think it over—but first I'll check on the girls.

She nudged the door open softly so that she would not disturb them, but she needn't have bothered. She heard Melanie's baby voice from within a room.

"I have a pony named Josiah," she was telling her sister, in the delicious, confidant, confidential way that children have. "I named him after Mr. Josiah. They're both the same color."

Scarlett clapped a hand over her mouth. Melly's pony was a dappled gray—the same color as Josiah's ancient beard.

"Does—your mother—let you ride him?" asked Ella, and Scarlett heard an incredulous note in her voice. Neither Ella nor Wade had been allowed to ride for a long while after Bonnie's accident. Scarlett made a quick, reflexive sign of the cross as she thought of her poor Bonnie. She was hidden in the shadows of the hall, but her sudden movement made both girls turn toward her.

"Momma!" cried Melanie, face flushed, and hair snarled with sleep.

"Good morning, baby," said Scarlett to her little girl, but her eyes were on her eldest daughter. Ella's face was as cold and remote as that of a marble statue. "Good morning, darling," repeated Scarlett tenderly, but still the girl would not meet her eyes.

_Well, Rome wasn't built in a day_. Scarlett fell back on the prosaic saying of old Dr. Meade to cover her depressed spirits. Of course, she could not expect Ella to rush to her and cover her with kisses. But Melanie leapt from her bed and did just that, standing on tiptoe to wrap her arms about her mother's waist. Scarlett picked her baby up and hid her flushed cheeks in the girl's neck.

"He's awake," she told Ella shyly, and was gratified beyond belief to see the girl's face light up. "You can go on in to him, if you want," she continued, and this time Ella, too, leapt up. She did not make a move toward Scarlett, though Scarlett's fingers itched to feel her daughter's lightly tanned skin, to stroke her coppery hair.

She did stop, though, and look her in the eye. Green eyes met green, and Scarlett trembled, waiting for her daughter to speak—wondering what she would say.

"Thank you—for saving his life," said Ella, and then she was gone.

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Scarlett barely had any time to think for the rest of the morning. The cows needed milking, and she had to work with the colts. By noon her face was streaked with dust and sweat and she only had time to pop into the house and change her dress before meeting with buyers. She peeked in at Kin and found him sleeping. The chair by his bedside was empty.

Buttoning her basque, she made her way to the parlor, where she found Ella dozing in a patch of sunshine on the settee. Melanie was curled up by her feet, playing with her doll.

"Sissy's tired, Momma," she said. "She's sleep again."

Scarlett's heart melted at the casual use of this term of endearment, but she drew her brows together sternly.

"You mustn't call Mrs. Kinnicut that," she cautioned, but Melly was nodding her head emphatically.

"She told me I could. But, Momma, she called me 'Bonnie.' Why did she do that?"

"You remind her of someone she used to know," said Scarlett, and bestowed a quick kiss on the faces of both her girls—the sleeping and the wakeful—before dashing out into the yard to shake hands with an army lieutenant from Fort Laramie.

The rest of the afternoon passed in the usual way of her business. Scarlett trotted a half-a-dozen colts around the ring for the admiring eyes of the army lieutenant, watching as his face lit up with admiration for each of the young horses. Within an hour he'd bought five of them—one was promised to a client in St. Louis. Scarlett brushed the dirt off of her hands and went into the kitchen, Josiah beaming as he followed. She poured each of them a dram of whisky and raised it in a toast.

"To a job well done," she said, per their ritual, and Josiah repeated it back, bolting the contents of his glass. Scarlett, however, took only the merest sip of hers. She had not touched any spirits in—well, in years now. Certainly before Melly was born. She pushed her glass over to Josiah and he bolted hers, too.

"Now back to the grind," said Scarlett, swatting him lightly with her crop as she shooed him out of the house.

She went around the kitchen, preparing supper. She was no great cook—had never learned—but she could reheat the ham left over from yesterday—good heavens, was it only yesterday?—and Katie Mueller had brought over a pie earlier in the week. That would do for dessert. They had plenty of biscuits, and one of Scarlett's clients had paid the fee for her setting his broken leg with a bushel of peas. She could do peas. She took the basket and went out to the front porch, and began the business of shelling them.

It was a warm, Indian-summer day. Her fingers settled into an automatic rhythm and she was so lost in thought that she hardly noticed when Ella sat down in the chair next to hers and began to shell, too. Scarlett became conscious that her ears were red—a sure sign that she was uncomfortable. Here was her daughter, and here was her chance to explain. But she did not know what to say—couldn't think where to begin.

"You called your baby Melanie?" asked Ella, shyly, and Scarlett nodded. "After Aunt Melanie?" Scarlett nodded again. "But where's her daddy? Is it—?"

"No," said Scarlett quickly. "Her father's dead. But isn't she sweet?"

"Yes—I love her already."

The only sound for a while was the sound of pea-pods dropping into the basket.

"Have you—" Scarlett began, "Have you been—married—long?"

"Just a few months. We got married in New Orleans."

Scarlett decided not to ask; there were so many other things she wanted to know. Why waste time on logistical details when there were so many other more important things to discern. "And are you—happy? Is Mr….Kinnicut….good to you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes."

Another pause; Scarlett struggled with herself, trying to find the words she wanted so badly to say.

"You don't have to say anything," Ella started, but Scarlett shook her head, protesting.

"I want to," she said. "But I—I'm afraid I don't know where to start."

"Why, at the beginning, of course." Ella's voice was kind, and her eyes crinkled up at the corners.

The beginning? What beginning? There were so many different places in her story where Scarlett could have started. So many places where she felt she had been reborn, reformed from ashes, shaped by circumstance into a new, malleable, fire-born creature. She thought back and back, and finally her mind settled on one image, as distant as a faraway star, of herself seated on the verandah at Tara, green flowered lawn skirts spread around her, two inches of Morocco-green slippers showing from under the hem. _Begin at the beginning_. Well, she would. Her lips curved up in the ghost of a smile, and Scarlett began to speak, her voice finding a rhythm in the work her hands were doing. She began at the beginning, as she had been bade to do.

"I wasn't beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by my charm as the Tarleton twins were…"


	51. Chapter 51

"Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."

Ella heard the familiar words with a jolt and her mind went suddenly back to the hot spring day at Tara when they had buried Uncle Will Benteen. Only a few short months ago—but she remembered it, vividly, for it had been the beginning of her own story, just as her mother's story had begun in the same lush part of that faraway Southland.

Ella's eyes watered tiredly and she bit her lip to stifle a yawn. Her mother's story had taken half the night to be told, and it had been almost dawn when she had crept into Kin's room to sleep upright in the chair by his bed, her mind swimming with the sounds of far-off, distant battle; with old familiar names and places of the past. Kin had not stirred when she fell to her knees and pressed her face into the bedcovers by his side; Ella's mother had woken her only a few hours later, with a soft touch on her hair, already dressed in mourning black.

There was a small crowd clustered around the coffin, most of them there out of respect to Mrs. Darcy, or out of a baser curiosity to see Mrs. Darcy's grown-up daughter. Still deeper Ella could feel a closer bond among these people that had drawn them there. They came to see a stranger buried because many of them were strangers themselves, out here on the lone frontier. They had come because they wanted others to come to see them buried, when the time came for their own crossing-over.

Ella could see her mother's gloved hands twitching—she knew that Scarlett itched to be back home at the paddocks, working with the colts. But the business of life—being born and being buried—waited for no man—or woman. Ella, too, longed to be at Kin's bedside.

They had been at Tara ranch for little less than a week and already Kin was well enough to sit up and bed and sip the spoonfuls of broth that Scarlett dutifully cooked up and delivered to the sickroom. But not well enough to stand—he had swayed dizzily back and forth when he tried—and definitely not well enough to make the mile-long walk to the burying-ground at the edge of town. He had been made to stay behind only after all coercion and cajoling had worn out. Josiah sat by the bed, with instructions to use the horsewhip should Kin try and get up again.

Margot and her baby had been buried in pauper's graves the day before, but Scarlett had given up a space in the Darcy plot for her daughter and her son-in-law's vibrant, yellow-haired friend. There was only one other stone in that section of the cemetery, the headstone reading the name of George Darcy. _Beloved father of Melanie, beloved husband of Laura._ Ella wondered again at the man who had been her mother's fourth husband for so short a while, her curiosity keeping other, terrible thoughts at bay.

Scarlett was subdued, her face showing no sign of what she might be feeling. Ella realized that her mother had buried both her parents, three husbands, and a child. Not to mention countless lovers—friends—and a sister. Yes, a sister. Dear Aunt Melanie. No, it was no great shock that Scarlett did not weep for the young man she had hardly known, though others did. Scarlett Darcy had used up all her tears.

Ella wondered why it was that she did not weep for Buck. She only felt that she _could_ not. She looked down at the grave and the raw, narrow pine box that would be lowered into it, wondering how anyone as vivid and exuberant as Buck could be contained forever in such a small space. It seemed impossible that he should be gone.

She thought of his kind ways, his quick smiles, his easy jokes. Still, she could not cry for him. She thought of the way he had slumped to the ground, gunsmoke acrid and bitter-tasting on the night air. Dead. But could one such as Buck ever _really_ be dead?

In the same haze of remembrance, she saw Kin's face, drained of color, as the terrible crimson stain had blossomed on his shirt-front. It just as easily might have been Kin they were burying today, and if that had been the case, Ella knew they would be digging her own grave, too. For she could never live without him.

At last the tears threatened to come and Ella bit her lip until she tasted blood, welcoming the distraction of pain, and offered up her own prayer as the Baptist preacher asked the Lord to welcome the soul of Aloysius Carleton Eddystone Wilder into his safe-keeping.

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Kin would not look at her. He kept his face turned to the wall, and Ella bit her lip again, wondering what to say that could get through the stony wall of his silence.

"It was a lovely service," she settled on, finally, but Kin gave no sign that he had heard her. Ella wondered if she should go on in this vein, or try a different tack. Kin must be feeling bad that he had missed Buck's funeral and she did not want to remind him of it. She switched to another topic, injecting a false brightness into her voice.

"Mother's clearing out the old cabin," she said, her tone brighter than she really felt. "She and George lived there for their first year—before they built the homestead. She's an old feather-bed we can have—Josiah is fixing it up with a stove—and Mrs. Mueller is bringing over an extra washstand. She thinks we might stay there through the winter—it's, well, it's more private than it would be in the house. And in the spring she thinks we might build a little house on the ridge. Can you imagine it, Kin? A house, of our very own?"

He mumbled something in a low voice.

"What?" Ella wondered.

He sat up, tossing the bedcovers to the ground. His face was dark and he was bare-chested, his bandages a swath of white against his dark skin.

"I said, 'I won't likely be here in the spring,'" Kin repeated, and Ella felt her face flush, and her eyes grow large with tears.

"Why?" she whispered, and the harshness of his laugh stung her, as though he had slapped her, or thrown a handful of pebbles against her tender heart. "Where are you going, Kin?"

His face was mocking, and she shrank from the hot, scornful look in his eyes.

"Have you forgotten our original bargain?" he asked in a scathing, sardonic tone.

"Our original…?"

"You find your mother, and we get divorced," he explained with a cutting courtesy. "A divorce is 'so much easier to get nowadays.' I believe that's the way you put it."

Ella recoiled, and hung her head, her own words echoing in her ears. She had, indeed, said just such a thing; she remembered it well. But that was before—before she could have realized what he would come to mean to her.

"You don't really want," she began, gulping back the hot mass of tears that seemed to have settled in her throat. "You _can't_ really want…"

His face was blank, impassive.

Ella laid a tentative hand on his arm, feeling for a moment the heat from his skin.

"Don't you," she choked, "Don't you—love—me?"

He jerked away from her touch, his injured shoulder rising and falling in a small shrug.

"Well, you've found your ma," he said. "And I wouldn't want you to think I won't keep my promise. I said I'd let you go and I intend to—if that's what you want. To be rid of me."

He spoke gruffly, but he could not keep a brief flash of—something—from his eyes. Ella looked up at him, her own gaze softening.

"You fool," she said lovingly. "How could you think I would ever want to be rid of you?"

He grunted, and turned his face away. She stood, hands fumbling with the jet buttons of her black dress. One by one they came undone, and she pulled the dress over her head, standing only in her shift.

"Look at me," Ella said, thought she needn't have said anything. Kin's eyes were fixed on her, and were so dark to be almost black with longing.

She fumbled with the laces of her shift, unused to anything but her old dungarees. She pulled at the knot until it came away, and the whole garment fell in a puddle at her feet. She kicked it aside, stepping out of her pantalets so that she was naked before him.

He looked at her hungrily, and Ella realized suddenly that he had never seen her this way. Oh, he had seen her unclothed before, but always under the darkness of night, in quick and hurried fumblings. She took her time in reaching up to undo the clasp that held her hair off of her shoulders, feeling the heavy weight of it as it cascaded down over her shoulders, her breasts.

She lifted the covers, and got into the bed, pressing her cool body against the length of him. They lay side by side, looking into each other's eyes, and Ella leaned forward and kissed him, long and deep.

"In sickness and in health." She stroked his wounded chest as she quoted from her marriage vows. "I didn't mean it when I first said it—but I do now. More than anything. Wherever you go, I'll go, for richer or for poorer, for better and for worse. To have and to hold."

Kin cupped her face in his large hand. "From this day forward," he said, and drew her to his chest.

"From this day forward," Ella repeated, seeing at once in her mind's eye all the bright tomorrows that awaited them.


	52. Chapter 52

Scarlett sat on the porch with a drowsy Melanie in her lap. For the first time in many months, she had nothing to do. It was an uneasy, prickly feeling, this idleness. She was not used to it.

Kin had gotten better so quickly and suddenly that it astonished them all. His wound had healed with minimal fuss and minimal attention from Scarlett. It was as though he had simply decided to get better, and once having made the decision, carried it out with a grim matter-of-factness. One day he had been bed-ridden, the next he was up and about, puttering around, acquainting himself with the business of running a ranch.

Already he was a formidable ranch-hand, in the way that George had never been. "Poor George," she murmured, with a pang of pity for him. His dream of being a rancher had never quite come true. But he had made it so that she could fulfill her own dreams. She had land—acres and acres of it—she had more money than she knew what to deal with. She pressed her head to Melanie's black curls, and thought of Ella, inside the house. She was a mother again.

Scarlett looked out over the paddock to where Kin was breaking colts, Josiah watching from behind the safety of the rail-fence. Josiah was an unflappable worker, but even he couldn't handle Hetty's spirited yearling. She was a nasty creature, who would bite or kick you just as soon as look at you. Kin had nicknamed her the Hell-Bitch upon their first meeting, when she had taken a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder. Scarlett thought of her secretly as 'India.'

Ella had spent the morning in the garden, moving inside during the heat of the day to set the bread do the baking for the week. The day's wash fluttered from the clothesline, and Scarlett heard Ella singing in the kitchen as she got supper on the table. An old song, that made the hairs on her arms stand up in eerie remembrance.

_Just a few more days for to tote this weary load!_

_No matter, twill never be light…_

Scarlett flexed her capable hands—rough and worn with years of work—and thought back to the languid, empty days of her youth. Once she had despaired of toting her own weary load. Funny how she did not mind it now. What a silly thing to be afraid of, a little hard work! She wondered what she would do without it now. How would she fill her days? How would she keep her mind sharp, keep herself useful?

Oh, a little bit of time for rest and relaxation was all right, but how could anyone stand a lifetime full of nothing to do? Scarlett wondered why it had never occurred to her then to drown herself in the river. What a weak, soft, useless thing she had been! _Had_ been, she thought, looking admiringly at the red, calloused hands that held her baby close.

She thought suddenly of Ashley. That was funny, too—that he had once consumed all of her thoughts. She never thought of him now, or hardly ever. Only once in a while, when she thought about how sad she was for him. Ashley had been so afraid of life that he had never gotten around to living—really living. He would always watch life from a safe distance, never able to plunge his hands into it up to the elbows. How sad, and empty, he was! Scarlett smiled crookedly. Poor Ashley—yes, _poor_. Poor because he could not taste life the way that she had. She pressed her lips together and offered up a silent prayer.

_Oh, God, be good to him, wherever he is. Don't let him wake from his dream. It would be—too cruel. Let him keep on dreaming, as long as he lives. _

But it was a prayer borne out of an old, dead friendship—nothing more. Scarlett realized with a start that she did not especially care if she never saw Ashley again. It would be too painful for them both. Painful for him because he had wanted her, once—and painful for her because she now realized that wanting _him_ had been a mistake. The biggest mistake of her life.

Melanie stirred in her sleep, her rosebud mouth opening in a little 'o' as though she had just dreamt of something nicely surprising. Scarlett made crooning noises, and the little girl settled herself deeper into the crook of her mother's arm. She was getting so big, Melly was, Scarlett thought as she studied the little face that the girl's features were no longer the soft curves of baby-hood. She wouldn't be Scarlett's baby for much longer. But right now she was, and Scarlett decided to enjoy it, and not turn her mind to the future for once. Right now was enough.

Kin unsaddled the yearling and let her roll in the dust as he conferred with Josiah. The old man's face lit up at being addressed in such a deferential way. Scarlett had always bossed Josiah within an inch of his life—Kin managed to boss him while making it simultaneously appear that the old man had come up with the idea on his own. He was a good boy, Kin was, and some of the weight of running the ranch had shifted pleasantly from Scarlett's shoulders to his own. It wasn't such a weary load when you had others to help tote it.

The light was fading, and night noises spreading out over the world. A chorus of bullfrogs croaked in the creek by the barn and the sun was starting to sink below the western ridge, right in the spot where Kin and Ella would build their house, come spring. Scarlett would always be surprised how quickly night came on the prairie. One moment it was bright and busy, and almost before you realized it, it was evening. The smells of supper wafted out on a stirring breeze, and Scarlett became glad all over again of her daughter's presence. Ella was a natural cook in a way that Scarlett could never be, and the scent of butter beans and ham boiling on the back burner made her stomach rumble and mouth water.

Kin had come in through the kitchen, and was now setting the table in the dining room. Scarlett heard the chink of silverware as he got it out from the drawer. What a gem of a husband he was! He didn't consider 'women's work' beneath him. What she would have given for a husband like that in the days when she had had to do a woman's work—and a man's, too.

"You look out for a man like that," she whispered against Melanie's black hair. "And when you find one—don't let him get away."

She hefted the girl in her arms and prepared to go into the house—and stopped short as her eyes took in the vista before her. Far away down the road was a man on a horse, kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake. The rider had a hat pulled down over his face—that and the dying light obscured his features. But Scarlett knew at once who it was. There was only one person who sat a horse with that sort of casual elegance and grace.

She had been waiting for him. She hadn't known it until this minute, but she _had_ been waiting for him. She had been waiting for him for oh, so long!

She deposited Melanie onto the porch-chair and wiped her sweating hands on her apron. "Who is it?" Kin called from inside, hearing the thunder of the hoof-beats as they came closer.

"You'd best set another place at the table," answered Scarlett, her voice high and giddy with joy. "It's your father—and he'll be hungry."

She didn't wait for a response from poor Kin. Instead, she ran lightly down the steps, her skirts flying around her, and out into the lane. To meet Rhett.


	53. Chapter 53

"What a damnably surprising turn of events," Rhett said again, for the hundredth time, Scarlett thought, in the two days he'd been at Tara. He simply couldn't stop shaking his head and exclaiming over it all. And, Scarlett thought, he really _did _look flabbergasted. He had abandoned his perpetual half-smirk for an incredulous—why, was that a smile?

Scarlett could not stop looking at him. He was as handsome as ever, but—but different. Decidedly so. The haggard look that had developed after Bonnie had died was gone. Rhett looked lean and brown from the sun, and his body was hard-muscled from weeks of riding. He looked like a man half his age, even with the silvery strands that dotted his black hair.

"I don't think I've ever come across anything that could surprise you," Scarlett mused, biting her lips to hide a smile of her own. "I began to think I never would, in this lifetime."

"Well, I'm happy to oblige you," said Rhett, his lips curling from underneath his black moustache. "Now you can die a happy woman."

"Yes—but not until we've got the wheat harvested," said Scarlett absently, and began to laugh as she realized what she'd said. She didn't intend to die for a good many years, wheat or no wheat. Her laughter was high and bright against the cool afternoon air, Rhett's bass rumbling along pleasantly. How strange that he should suddenly be here, part of the new life she had forged for herself. She had liked this life because she had thought he would have no part in it—and now he was here, and it surprised her how easily he fit into it all.

She saw Rhett's eyes looking eagerly out over her land—a thousand acres of her very own land, bought and cultivated by her own hand. The sturdy barns, and stables, the neat split-rail fences, the even rows of crops stretching out to the east in orderly lines. Her land—_hers_. She sniffed appreciatively, and felt Rhett's eyes settle on her proudly raised head.

"Look at this place," he murmured, more to himself than to her, but Scarlett could not help but make a teasing reply.

"Rhett Butler! You sound positively—Irish."

"I can't think what I've done to deserve that sort of slander," he drawled in his own sarcastic tone. She laughed, marveling over the fact that he could still be the same to her—and yet, so very changed.

Rhett had turned his gaze on her. He looked openly, and critically—but not, she thought, a hot blush firing her cheeks, not critically. She made herself sit stock still and receive his long look without flinching, but deep down in her heart she thanked whatever gods may be that her hair was still black and lustrous, her figure trim, her eyes unfaded. _Thank God I am still beautiful—for him_. _It would have pained him to find me looking old and run down. _

"You've been busy, Scarlett," he said finally, looking again out over the land, and down at the black-haired little girl he held in his arms. She blushed crimson over that. Already Melly had taken to 'Uncle Whett' like a duck to water. Her little body was sprawled in sleep, safe in his encircling arms. Wade had slept in those arms, once—and Ella, too. Strange, that it no longer hurt to think of those old days. No—not now that he was here. She could sift the good times from the bad, and dwell on the sweet memories, instead of the ones that hurt her. Because he had come back to her—he had finally come.

"I have been busy," Scarlett sighed, reaching out to tweak Melanie's curl. "And oh, Rhett—I've liked it."

"Really?"

"Yes. It puts me in mind of the time at Tara—the old Tara—after the war. I had to work so hard just to get by. I felt _useful_, then—and after that I couldn't ever go back to the old ways. I had to keep myself busy—and folks there didn't understand it."

"Do you miss it—Atlanta? Or Tara—the first Tara?"

"No," she said quickly, and then, "Well—not much. Sometimes I dream I'm home again—back East—and Mother and Pa are there, and all the darkies, and the Tarleton boys and the Wilkeses—things are the way they used to be. I wake up and I'm crying. But it's only the _dream_ that gets to me. It's not home. Tara—the way I remember it—the way I want it to be—doesn't exist anymore. Yes—I miss it—but more than that, I miss the old days."

She spoke matter-of-factly, but her eyes grew large and dreamy. "I miss them for about five minutes after I get up—but then I go outside and I see all this." Scarlett waved her hands over the grassy prairie land, at the big sky, toward the purple Rockies in the west. "Sometimes I get all shivery thinking of all that I have—a home, and a thriving business, and good friends, and my girl—both my girls. My Ella and my baby."

They did not speak of Bonnie, but she was on both of their minds. Scarlett reached out and covered Rhett's hand with her own. His head snapped up, wary, but there was no guile or plotting in his eyes. The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile.

"So Scarlett O'Hara has everything she wants," he said easily. "Do you not have any hopes for the future?"

"Oh, indeed I do," said Scarlett hastily. "I want to buy more land—another few hundred acres. Kin's a cowboy and he knows the cattle industry—and the army needs cattle, Rhett. I'd like to expand and di…di…diversify."

"Oh, Scarlett." Rhett shook his head ruefully. "Someone's been talking business to you."

She ignored him, her head still swimming with plans. "Kin will help me—he and Ella have decided to stay on permanently. And oh, Rhett, he's your son through and through. He's a sound head for business."

"That's the nicest compliment I've ever heard you give a fellow," said Rhett, his white teeth gleaming in his dark face. His voice took on a curious tone. "How did you know that Robert was my son?"

"I'm not stupid—and I was married to you for years and years," she said hotly, offended as if he'd insulted her intelligence. "I know your middle name. And besides, Kin" she stressed his name in a cautionary way, "couldn't look more like you if you'd spit him out of your own mouth."

Rhett threw back his head and laughed long and hard, so that Melanie jumped in his arms. "There, there, sweetheart," he said, patting her back until she settled again. "I suppose you're right, Scarlett. The laddie's handsome, that's true. "

"And…?" she flushed, trying to find the words to ask a particular question. Rhett lifted his eyebrows at her fluster.

"What is it you'd like to know, Scarlett? I can see the wheels turning under your cap of black hair. Ask away, before you burst from the strain of trying not to."

"How are things with you and Kin?" she asked bluntly. "He didn't seem too glad to see you when you rode up."

"No—there's a history between us. I don't think he'll ever be calling me 'dear Dad' but he shook my hand this morning and even managed to look me in the eyes without flinching."

"Because Ella asked him to," Scarlett said knowledgeably. "Kin would do anything for her."

Rhett was not about to let her get away with being the interrogator. "Speaking of sons, though, Scarlett—what about yours? Does Wade know you've come back from the dead?"

"You've always been the most exasperating man," she told him spiritedly. "Oh—Wade knows. I wrote him a few years ago and offered to bring him out here but he declined. I don't think Wade will ever be able to really forgive me for the way I acted for so long. I haven't been a mother at all to him—Melly mothered him, because I couldn't—or wouldn't—well. I think he'd prefer to keep on clinging to her memory instead of trying to patch things up with me. I don't mind much." She shrugged and tried to smile, but he could see a little hurt make its way across her face.

"And anyway—I've Ella," she said, and her eyes were very bright.

They looked over to where Ella was pinning wet clothes to the line to dry. The wind was blowing from the east, scattering clouds across the sky, flattening Ella's dress against her body enough to show the round hard swell of her belly under her apron.

"Why, she's going to have a baby!" cried Rhett, astonished, and Scarlett nodded, smiling.

"Yes—in the spring. They told me yesterday, but I knew it right away when she came here, though I don't think she knew it herself."

"Really? How could you tell?"

"Well…" Scarlett reddened, and Rhett laughed. ("Still playing the little southern belle, Scarlett?") "I _have_ had four children of my own." She looked over at Melanie, and Rhett followed her gaze.

"You don't deserve her," he said, tightening his grasp on the sleeping child.

"I know," Scarlett answered. "But God is good."

They sat in companionable silence for a while.

"What about you?" Scarlett wondered, a little self-consciously, clasping her hands over her knees. "What are _you_ going to do, Rhett? You're going to be a granddaddy in a few months' time. Will you go home—back to Atlanta, I mean? Or—have you thought about—well, about staying on, here?"

"I don't think I could go back to the civilized South—after this." He waved his hand to indicate the vast prairie, and the even vaster sky. "Maybe I'll buy a few hundred acres myself, Scarlett."

"And do what? Grow turnips?" They laughed, and she reached out to lay a tentative hand on his arm.

"You could stay here," she proposed, her eyes large and a little shy. "There's more than enough room. You could even build a home of your own, if you wanted."

"A bachelor pad." Rhett laughed quietly through his teeth.

"Yes," she said. "Or—I could clear out George's study for you. And," Scarlett squared her shoulders, "There's more than enough work to keep you busy—until the baby comes."

Rhett smiled at her, then, dazzlingly, and looked so amused that Scarlett felt a little indignant. "What?" she asked. "Have I got a fly on my nose? Or is my offer _that_ ridiculous to you?"

"No," Rhett laughed. "Your nose is fine—and I suppose I'll take you up on your offer, ridiculous as it is. I was just thinking back, Scarlett, to the days after the war, when Ella Lorena was just a little baby. We were sitting on the porch at Miss Pittypat's looking out over Peachtree street—a little like the way we're sitting now, only Peachtree street is few thousand miles away, thanks to goodness. But _you_ suggested that we might have mutual grandchildren one day. We laughed over it, then—but I suppose you were right after all. My dear, have you ever considered a career as a fortune teller—in addition to shopkeeper, mill-proprietress, ranch-hand…you _are _a woman of many talents, Scarlett—darling."

She smiled under his teasing. "I'd take up fortune-telling if it would bring in any money," she said, eyes suddenly agleam with possibilities. "I want to put a new roof on the stables—and fence in the south pasture—and buy more stock…"

"Hush," Rhett said, taking her hand and pressing his lips to it. "There's plenty of time for that tomorrow, Scarlett. Tonight let's leave all business aside—and enjoy being together. My dear—I'll say it plainly, though it will puff you up like a peacock, no doubt: I've missed you."

She didn't need to say she'd missed him too. Her eyes said it all.

Ella had finished with the clothes and went to join Kin in the paddocks where they watched the colts prancing, the light of sunset settling on their fiery coats as evening fell across the prairie. She took his hand and he settled his hands briefly against her belly, where their burgeoning child lay between them. Then he tickled her and she swatted at him, and laughing, hand in hand, they made their way up to the house, joining their parents on the porch.

The young people sat close together, Ella's head on Kin's shoulder, as they watched the sky light up with the remains of the day. Rhett's hand was still warm on Scarlett's own. The night was falling fast, now, another day lost to the too-swift procession of time. But no one on the porch mourned its loss. There were plenty of days to come for them—a gleaming strand of days, like pearls on a string. To be worked through, hoped for, cherished. They were not thinking of lost time but of tomorrow—that bright Tomorrow, and all their hopes for it. They would help to shape whatever days would come after _this_ one—each according to his own talents, in his own way.

But for the moment, it was enough to be together.

THE END.


End file.
